Facing defeat in Mosul, Islamic State mounts diversionary attack to the south

[rooster59]

Facing defeat in Mosul, Islamic State mounts diversionary attack to the south

 

Members of Iraqi federal police carry their weapons during fighting with Islamic State militants at the frontline in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

 

MOSUL/TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - Islamic State militants attacked a village south of Mosul, killing several people including two journalists, even as they were about to lose their last redoubt in the city to an Iraqi military onslaught, security sources said on Friday.

 

The assault on Imam Gharbi village appeared to be the sort of diversionary, guerrilla-style strike Islamic State is expected to employ as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces regain control over cities IS captured in a shock 2014 offensive.

 

Security sources said IS insurgents had infiltrated Imam Gharbi, some 70 km (44 miles) south of Mosul on the western bank of the Tigris river, on Wednesday evening from a pocket of territory still under their control on the eastern bank.

 

Two Iraqi journalists were reported killed and two others wounded as they covered the security forces' counter-attack to take back the village on Friday. An unknown number of civilians and military were also killed or wounded.

 

The fighting forced the U.N.-affiliated International Organization for Migration to suspend relief operations at two sites where it houses nearly 80,000 people near Qayyara, just north of Imam Gharbi, a U.N. statement said.

 

With water trucks no longer able to reach the sites, the displaced people could run short of water at a time of midsummer temperatures well over 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), it said.

 

The insurgents were still in control of half the village by Friday evening, security sources said.

 

In Mosul, IS clung to a slowly shrinking pocket on the Tigris west bank, battling for every metre with snipers, grenades and suicide bombers, which forced Iraqi troops to fight house-to-house in densely-populated blocks.

 

The Iraqi military has forecast final victory this week in what used to be the de facto capital of IS's "caliphate" in Iraq, after a grinding eight-month, U.S.-backed offensive to wrest back the city, whose pre-war population was 2 million.

 

But security forces faced ferocious resistance from several hundred militants hunkered down among thousands of civilians in the maze of alleyways in Mosul's Old City.

 

Mosul was by far the largest city seized by Islamic State in its offensive three years ago where the ultra-hardline group declared its caliphate over adjoining parts of Iraq and Syria.

 

ASYMMETRIC ATTACKS

 

Stripped of Mosul, IS's dominion in Iraq will be reduced to mainly rural, desert areas west and south of the city where tens of thousands of people live, and the militants are expected to keep up asymmetric attacks on selected targets across Iraq.

 

Adhel Abu Ragheef, a Baghdad-based expert on jihadist groups, said Islamic State was likely to carry out "more of these raid-type attacks on security forces to try to divert them away from the main battle", now in Mosul and then in other areas west of Mosul including near the Syrian border still under IS control.

 

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared the end of Islamic State's "state of falsehood" a week ago, after security forces took Mosul's medieval Grand al-Nuri mosque - although only after retreating militants blew it up.

 

Months of grinding urban warfare in Mosul have displaced 900,000 people, about half the city's pre-war population, and killed thousands, according to aid organisations.

 

The United Nations predicts it will cost more than $1 billion to repair basic infrastructure in Mosul. Iraq's regional Kurdish leader said the Baghdad central government had failed to prepare a post-battle political, security and governance plan.

 

The offensive has damaged thousands of structures in Mosul's Old City and destroyed nearly 500 buildings, satellite imagery released by the United Nations on Thursday showed.

 

In some of the worst affected areas, almost no buildings appear to have escaped damage, and Mosul's dense construction means the extent of the devastation might be underestimated, U.N. officials said.

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-07-08

[boomerangutang]

Arabs sure know how to destroy things (and human lives) when they put their focus on it.  Forget the natural environment, they destroyed that 6,000 years ago.

[Rancid]

Curious why so many ISIS were allowed to leave Mosul and head into Syria, apparently even under escort. Wouldn't the retaking of Mosul been a great time to do humanity a favor and just wipe them out?

[Cloggie]

I am sure the leftist in Europe want to give all these 'poor souls' asylum, free housing and lifelong unemployment benefit will help them to reintegrate into our society, 

[Stargeezr]

Corruption in this part of the world is a big reason for some of the ISIL cowards being let go in Mosul.  Keep killing them all off. That is the only solution.

Geezer

[ilostmypassword]

2 hours ago, boomerangutang said:

Arabs sure know how to destroy things (and human lives) when they put their focus on it.  Forget the natural environment, they destroyed that 6,000 years ago.

Those stark and beautiful Mediterranean landscape that thrills tourists so much in southern europe used to be covered in forest. Of course, unlike the Arabs, Europeans has been mostly very peaceful over the course of their history.

[simple1]

1 hour ago, Rancid said:

Curious why so many ISIS were allowed to leave Mosul and head into Syria, apparently even under escort. <snip>

Have you a link to this info - too many fake news sites. I suppose it's possible to try and reduce civilian deaths in Mosul, though unlikely given the total hate of Daesh by Iraqi forces.

 

[simple1]

3 hours ago, boomerangutang said:

Arabs sure know how to destroy things (and human lives) when they put their focus on it.  Forget the natural environment, they destroyed that 6,000 years ago.

Interesting, I assume you mean the introduction of irrigation around 5000BC.

 

https://www.timemaps.com/encyclopedia/history-middle-east/

 

Wasn't it the Mongols who generated the most destruction in the M.E.?

[ilostmypassword]

17 minutes ago, simple1 said:

Interesting, I assume you mean the introduction of irrigation around 5000BC.

 

https://www.timemaps.com/encyclopedia/history-middle-east/

 

Wasn't it the Mongols who generated the most destruction in the M.E.?

I'm not sure what he's on about with the environmental destruction angle. Ancient civilizations often did engage in practices that ultimately had a harmful effect on their environment. Though not at all in the same league as current day practices. And were the people of those ancient civilizations Arabs?

[simple1]

33 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

I'm not sure what he's on about with the environmental destruction angle. Ancient civilizations often did engage in practices that ultimately had a harmful effect on their environment. Though not at all in the same league as current day practices. And were the people of those ancient civilizations Arabs?

At the very least, many of the rulers were not

Edited July 8, 2017 by simple1