Iraqi forces are poised to enter Mosul
Carolyn Cole/TNS On the eastern front in fight for Mosul, Iraqi special force unit commanded by Lt. Col. Ali Hussein Fadil, center, commands over 150 men in the fight to retake the city of Mosul, including Walid Abdel Nabih, age 28, at left, in Bartella, Iraq.
The fight against Islamic State is finally coming to Mosul, Iraq.
With Iraq’s prime minister vowing to cut off “the head of the snake,” elite government forces were said to be less than a mile from the city’s eastern limits and poised to breach that boundary, perhaps within hours.
The commander of Iraqi special forces, Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil, said his troops would soon enter Mosul and “liberate it,” The Associated Press reported.
The Reuters news agency quoted a force commander as saying Iraqi troops had entered an eastern suburb. But the fight to retake Mosul from the Sunni Muslim extremists could involve weeks or months of brutal urban warfare.
This apparent new phase of the battle comes two weeks after the start of a long-awaited offensive by tens of thousands of American-backed Iraqi and Kurdish troops, tribal fighters and militias.
The coalition has been working to drive Islamic State out of towns and villages surrounding the northern city, its fighters dealing as they go with jihadist suicide bombers, oil-filled trenches and booby-trapped structures and bridges.
It’s the biggest military operation in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq 13 years ago.
The leading edge of Iraqi forces, elite counterterrorism troops, reached Mosul’s eastern Karama district after penetrating the outlying industrial zone of Gogjali, Reuters quoted Lt. Gen Abdul Ghani Assadi as telling state television. State TV also reported that residents were rising up against the militants — something the coalition has long urged them to do despite the dangers.
A resident of Mosul’s eastern edge named Abu Mohammed told Britain’s Guardian newspaper by phone that Islamic State fighters had been putting up “intense resistance” in the face of the Iraqi troop advance on Karama. The reports could not immediately be independently verified.
Islamic State overran the city, Iraq’s second largest, in 2014, representing a major expansion of its self-declared caliphate extending across parts of Syria and Iraq. Retaking the city has already been costly for civilians trapped between battle lines and commandeered as human shields by the extremists.
Loss of the city would be a major blow to Islamic State but could trigger a flood of refugees — up to 1 million, by the warning of the United Nations.
News agencies quoted Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi as saying troops were seeking to seal the escape routes for Islamic State fighters and commanders, and pledged to take the fight to the militants.
“God willing, we will cut off the head of the snake,” al-Abadi declared on state television, clad in military fatigues and speaking from the Qayyarah military base south of the city. “They have no escape. They will die or surrender.”