KHAZIR, Iraq -- Iraq's offensive for the northern city of Mosul has begun, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said early today.
The U.S.-backed operation aims to push the Islamic State militant group out of its de facto capital in Iraq. It will be the biggest military operation in Iraq since American troops left in 2011 and, if successful, the strongest blow yet to the Islamic State.
State TV showed a brief written statement announcing the start of the widely anticipated military offensive in Iraq's second-largest city.
Broadcasts showed the prime minister, dressed in a military uniform, speaking while flanked by senior officers. State TV broadcast patriotic music minutes after the announcement.
Al-Abadi has repeatedly promised that Mosul would be retaken in 2016, but Maj. Salam Jassim, a commander with Iraq's elite special forces, said he is not sure that's possible, with booby traps and explosive devices expected to slow the way.
Civilians, too, will complicate the battle. Between 1.2 million and 1.8 million are still inside the city, he said.
To avoid a humanitarian crisis, the Iraqi government has asked civilians to stay in their homes.
"The operation will take much longer because of this," said Brig. Gen. Haider al-Obeidi, another commander with Iraq's special forces. "It also means each neighborhood needs to be surrounded and searched as we clear it."
Late Sunday, dozens of ambulances were lined up at checkpoints on the edges of Iraq's northern region of Kurdistan, ready for casualties.
Mosul has come to symbolize the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq. It was in Mosul's Great Mosque that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced his self-proclaimed caliphate more than two years ago.
But since then, the group's grip on its territory has crumbled. Tikrit, Ramadi and Fallujah have been recaptured by Iraqi forces relying on U.S.-led airstrikes.
It's only a matter of time before Mosul is recaptured, too, Iraqi commanders say.
"We'll take it," Jassim said. "There's no doubt."
Mosul buildup
Troops have massed to the north, south and east of the city in recent weeks. Trucks packed with Iraqi soldiers and military vehicles have clogged the roads as forces have moved into place. Tanks, armored vehicles and weaponry have been hauled nearly 250 miles from the capital, Baghdad.
Iraqi forces began moving into Nineveh province to surround Mosul in July, when ground troops led by the country's special forces retook Qayara air base south of the city.
Before the prime minister's announcement, Brig. Gen Haider Fadhil said more than 25,000 troops, including paramilitary forces made up of Sunni tribal fighters and Shiite militias, will take part in the offensive. The U.S. military believes 3,000 to 4,500 Islamic State fighters are still in the city.
In addition to carrying out airstrikes, the U.S.-led international coalition will also provide artillery fire, he added.
The role of the Shiite militias has been particularly sensitive, as Nineveh is a majority Sunni province. Shiite militia forces have been accused of carrying out abuses against civilians in other operations in majority Sunni parts of Iraq.
For the first 48 hours, the offensive on the eastern front will be led by the Kurdish Peshmerga, Iraqi military officers said.
"Then they will stop," al-Obeidi said. "We'll start after them and move after them to support them."
Federal police and Iraqi army units will move up the main highway from Baghdad, while Shiite militia forces are expected to focus on Tal Afar to the west and the town of Hawijah to the southeast. The Kurdish Peshmerga, Sunni fighters and the Iraqi army will also attack from the north.
The U.S.-led coalition will provide closer support than in any other operation, al-Obeidi said, and Apache helicopters will probably be used. On Sunday night, preparatory airstrikes rattled windows in the special forces base near Khazir.
In addition to U.S. air support, President Barack Obama this month approved the deployment of 615 U.S. troops to aid the Mosul offensive by providing intelligence and logistical assistance. That brings the U.S. forces in Iraq to more than 5,000.
The coalition has requested that the airspace be cleared of Iraqi jets, whose air support will be limited to the areas where Shiite militias are on the ground, al-Obeidi said.
"All the sky will be for the coalition," he added.
Mosul will not be besieged. The western side of the city will be left largely open, which may make for a less protracted fight.
"We'll try to give them an escape to run to Syria," al-Obeidi said of the militants.
Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasoul, a spokesman for the Iraqi military, said that even if the western side is left open, it doesn't mean a safe escape for the Islamic State.
"If we do that, then this area will become a killing zone as we target them with our aircraft," he said.
The offensive was announced hours after a suicide bomber struck a gathering of Shiite mourners in Baghdad, killing at least four people and wounding another 12, Iraqi officials said.
The attack took place in Baghdad's Shiite-dominated Jadriyah neighborhood on the Tigris River, where the bomber approached Shiites commemorating the seventh-century death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, a police officer said.
A medical official confirmed the toll. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information to the press.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement carried by the Islamic State-linked Aamaq news agency. The claim could not be independently verified.
Residents' resistance
The stakes in the offensive are high for Mosul, a Sunni stronghold long disaffected from Iraq's Shiite leaders. The grievances among the country's Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish populations that allowed the Islamic State to rise to power in the first place have not been resolved.
Interviews with roughly three dozen people from Mosul, including refugees who managed to sneak out in recent weeks and residents reached by contraband cellphones in the city, portrayed a pressure-cooker-like atmosphere. Just getting out of Mosul has become difficult and dangerous: Those who are caught face fines of about $850, or about two months' salary for most residents. If they are former members of the Iraqi police or army, the punishment for fleeing is beheading.
Some of Mosul's remaining residents have grown bolder in showing resistance against the Islamic State force ruling the city. Graffiti and other displays of dissidence against the Islamic State have become more common there in recent weeks, as have executions when the vandals have been caught.
Early this month, 58 people were executed for their role in a plot to overturn the Islamic State that was led by an aide of al-Baghdadi, Reuters reported.
When fewer than 1,000 Islamic State fighters forced about 60,000 Iraqi army and police defenders to abandon Mosul in June 2014, many in the city's Sunni population cheered their arrival. They saw the militants as fellow Sunnis who would end corruption and abuse at the hands of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government and security services.
But much of that goodwill has dissipated after more than two years of harsh rule by the militants, a mix of Iraqis and Syrians with a few foreign fighters.
Mosul residents have chafed under social codes banning smoking and calling for splashing acid on tattoos, summary executions of perceived opponents, whippings for those who missed prayers or trimmed their beards, and the destruction of "un-Islamic" historical monuments.
"Anyone who has accepted Daesh before, they've changed their minds now," said Azhar Mahmoud, a former Education Ministry official who recently fled his home village near Mosul, and who initially accepted rule by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh.
In addition, there have been recent reports of at least some underground resistance within the city. Photos and oral accounts abound of the Arabic letter M scrawled on walls -- standing for "moqawama," or "resistance." The Islamic State beheaded two men in front of one such slogan and posted a video of the killings.
Another execution video identified the victims, punished for Internet use, as members of the resistance group Suraya Rimah, according to the group's leader, Omar Fadil al-Alaf, who is based in Irbil.
"People are just waiting for liberation so they can fulfill their promises to take revenge on Daesh and kill them," al-Alaf said.
Resistance groups in the city -- at least five claim to have a presence -- say they have concentrated on assassinating individuals, said Abdullah Abu Ahmed, who described himself as a leader of an anti-Islamic State brigade in Mosul called The Resistance. He was reached by telephone through intermediaries.
"All Mosul people, whenever they have the chance to fight and kill ISIS terrorists, they do so," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Rod Nordland of The New York Times; by Loveday Morris of The Washington Post; and by Adam Schreck, Sinan Salaheddin, Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Murtada Faraj and Susannah George of The Associated Press.
A Section on 10/17/2016