Iraq Launches Operation In West Mosul Against Daesh
MEP: Iraq has launched an operation aimed at taking western Mosul from the Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group, Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has announced.
“We announce the start of a new phase in the operation, we are coming Nineveh to liberate the western side of Mosul,” said Haider al-Abadi in a brief televised speech on Sunday.
The militants are essentially under siege in western Mosul, along with an estimated 650,000 civilians, after U.S.-backed forces surrounding the city forced them from the east in the first phase of an offensive that concluded last month.
But the western side, with its narrow, winding streets, may prove a bigger challenge.
The Iraqi air force dropped millions of leaflets over western Mosul late Saturday, warning residents of an offensive by ground forces on the ISIS-held part of the city. The area has been targeted only by airstrikes in the past.
“Your armed forces (..) are advancing in the direction of the right side, relying on God,” read one of the leaflets, referring to the western side of the northern Iraqi city.
“Get ready to welcome the sons of your armed forces and to cooperate with them, as your brothers on the left side have done, in order to reduce losses and speed up the conclusion” of the battle, added the leaflet.
More than 46,000 people who fled Mosul as fighting raged have, though, been able to return to its eastern districts over the past few weeks despite the pockets of fighting.
On Thursday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced that armed forces would begin the ground offensive to retake western Mosul “very soon.”
Meanwhile, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, has warned that some 400,000 Iraqi civilians may be displaced by operations to retake the city’s western side.
She added that troops preparing to enter the city “need to ensure that humanitarian concept of operations is adhered to, and that all of the parties to the conflict do absolutely everything they can to ensure that civilians survive the battle, and that they live,” she added.
