The U.S. backed Iraqi Security Forces are in an extremely up close and personal fight in the battle for Mosul against the Islamic State.
The operation to retake Mosul began in October 2016 and has dragged on nearly nonstop for four months. The Iraqi Security Forces took nearly three months just to retake half of the city and lost hundreds of troops in the urban slog. The Iraqis are now advancing on western Mosul, where the fighting has become even worse. ISIS has been dug into the city for nearly two years and routinely uses civilian human shields.
“The fighting is at much closer quarters. It was street-by-street – now it’s house-by-house,” a member of the Iraqi Security Forces told Reuters. western Mosul has much narrower streets than the east, rendering some of the Iraqi’s armored humvee’s useless. Lack of armor is particularly deadly because ISIS frequently deploys suicide car bombs against Iraqi checkpoints.
“We are often literally in the same house, on the roof, and Daesh (Islamic State) is downstairs. Sometimes we drop grenades. If there are civilians, families in the homes, we shout to them to take cover inside a room,” the soldier lamented. A nearby medic commented, “[ISIS] are hiding in homes, opening doors and shooting at troops from just a few meters away.”
The Iraqi government estimates nearly 30 percent of western Mosul has been retaken so far, but the gains are tenuous. Iraqi soldiers recently told WaPo that different units saw retaking areas as “a competition,” leading to brash decisions that cost the lives of troops and civilians.
600,000 civilians also remain inside the city. The civilians are often forcibly moved around by ISIS to prevent U.S. airstrikes on their positions. Iraqi soldiers fear some ISIS fighters will disguise themselves within the civilian population as the terrorist group continues to lose territory.
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