ISIS snipers, bombers slow advance in Mosul

Airstrikes aid house-to-house battle

Iraqi security forces launch a rocket targeting Islamic State positions Sunday during fighting in western Mosul.
Iraqi security forces launch a rocket targeting Islamic State positions Sunday during fighting in western Mosul.

BAGHDAD -- Iraqi troops encountered the heaviest resistance yet with Islamic State fighters Sunday in western Mosul since the start of the push more than two weeks ago to retake the area, according to a senior commander.

Maj. Gen. Haider al-Maturi of the Federal Police Commandos Division said Islamic State militants dispatched at least six suicide car bombs, which were all destroyed before reaching the troops. The militants, he said, are moving from house to house and deploying snipers.

Iraqi forces launched attacks against militant-held neighborhoods in western Mosul from three points Sunday morning. The Federal Police is closing in on the city's main government complex in the Dawasa neighborhood, and Iraq's special forces are attempting to push into the Shuhada and Mansour neighborhoods.

Islamic State fighters have "some mortar [teams] and snipers positioned inside homes," said Iraqi special forces Maj. Ali Talib, explaining that U.S.-led coalition airstrikes have helped destroy some of the Islamic State defenses, but clashes are still ongoing.

Al-Maturi said his troops are now some 500 yards away from the government complex.

Since Feb. 25, 45,714 people have been displaced from western Mosul, the United Nations International Organization for Migration said Sunday.

The number of Iraqis displaced from eastern and western Mosul since October reached 206,520, but almost 64,000 of them have returned to their homes in the liberated areas, the agency said.

Hala Jaber, a spokesman for the agency's operations in Mosul, said most of the families who recently fled western Mosul were taken by government buses and trucks to the Hamam al-Alil area southwest of Mosul.

"Camps are expanding and in continuous working progress as we speak, to take in the coming displaced persons," she added.

In February, the United Nations warned that the humanitarian situation is desperate for an estimated 750,000 civilians in western Mosul.

On Sunday, Iraqi forces took over several government buildings in Dawasa district as they moved closer to the central parts of western Mosul, a police official said.

Col. Emad al-Bayati said the U.S.-backed forces now control police stations and military sites in the area.

The forces had stormed Dawasa earlier Sunday.

Also on Sunday, The Hague, Netherlands-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said in a statement that the organization was "seriously concerned" about reports of chemical weapons being used in Mosul.

The agency has asked Iraqi authorities for more information and has offered its assistance in the investigation, the statement said.

The suspected attack occurred last week in eastern Mosul, an area declared fully liberated by Iraqi forces in January. The chemical attack, believed to be from mortal rounds, hit a neighborhood along the Tigris River, which roughly divides the city in two. Hospital officials said 10 patients were admitted for exposure and would be discharged in the coming days.

The International Committee of the Red Cross did not say who was to blame for the potential attack.

The United Nations warned that the use of chemical weapons, if confirmed, would be a war crime and a serious violation of international humanitarian law.

The push on Mosul's west began about two weeks ago after the eastern half of the city was declared "fully liberated" in January. The operation to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city, officially began in October after more than two years of slowly clawing back territory from Islamic State militants who overran nearly a third of Iraq in the summer of 2014.

Information for this article was contributed by Qassim Abdul-Zahra of The Associated Press and Sahar Othman and Nehal El-Sherif of Tribune News Service.

A Section on 03/06/2017

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