Tag Archives: Iraq

After Islamic State defeat, broken Iraq farmers weigh heavy losses

Workers repair a house after it was damaged during clashes in the town of Basheeqa, Iraq, February 8, 2017.

By Michael Georgy and Maha El Dahan

QARAQOSH, Iraq/ABU DHABI (Reuters) – Sami Yuhanna was making a decent living as a wheat farmer until a jihadist put a gun to his head and declared his land in Iraq’s Nineveh province the property of Islamic State.

An army offensive has cleared the militants from the eastern half of the provincial capital, Mosul, and nearby towns and villages like Qaraqosh, home to Yuhanna’s fields.

But the terror and mismanagement that characterized their two-year rule after seizing Iraq’s agriculture heartland has devastated farmers and exacerbated the country’s food security problem.

Yuhanna, who used to sell about 100 tonnes of wheat per year, now lives in a small trailer and drives a taxi in the Kurdish capital of Erbil to barely survive. He is still haunted by the day armed militants arrived.

“They just took over everything I owned,” he said.

Farmers fear the agriculture sector could take years to recover, with tractors missing, unexploded mines in the fields and farm compounds damaged by airstrikes on the militants, who sold commodities like wheat to finance their operations.

Nineveh was Iraq’s most productive farming region before the arrival of Islamic State, producing around 1.5 million tonnes of wheat a year, or about 21 percent of Iraq’s total wheat output, and 32 percent of barley.

An estimated 70 percent of farmers fled when Islamic State took over, and those who stayed — either to join the movement or out of fear — faced heavy taxation.

As a Christian, Yuhanna was particularly vulnerable to the Sunni extremists, who tried to build a self-sustaining caliphate and killed anyone opposed to their radical ideas.

“The people that turned on me we were all from this area. I knew every one of them. They joined Daesh,” said Yuhanna, using an acronym for the group.

Reuters was not able to obtain official figures for agricultural output during Islamic State rule because the government had no access to areas under jihadist control.

Haider al-Abbadi, head of the General Union of Farmers Cooperatives, told Reuters in a telephone interview that he estimated output fell to around 300,000 tonnes, based on accounts of how much of the grain farmers had sold.

“Islamic State used to surround farmers in general and prevent them from going out into the fields and farming their land because they were scared they would escape or that they would go and join the government forces,” Abbadi said.

“This season it will be difficult to see an improvement. The only hope is that the farmers might be able to market their produce to the government again. I don’t expect the wheat crop to be more than 500,000 tonnes this season.”

Fadel El Zubi, Iraq Representative for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), agreed the outlook is dire.

“It is extremely important to support farmers as their situation in newly retaken areas is characterized by extreme difficulties that is disabling them to start planting for this season 2016-2017,” Zubi said in written answers to Reuters.

“Seeds, fertilizers, fuel, electricity, sustainable agricultural equipment, as well as irrigation channels and wells and other essential supplies, are not available to enable farmers to restore their usual farming.”

The militants seized 1.1 million tonnes of wheat that was in government silos, according to Zubi. In addition, about 40 percent of agricultural machinery was sold as parts or smuggled into neighboring countries to raise money for militant activities, Abbadi said.

FOOD SECURITY

Ensuring food security has consistently been one of the central government’s biggest — and most pressing — challenges.

Even late dictator Saddam Hussein was cautious when it came to food. A rationing program for flour, cooking oil, rice, sugar and baby milk formula, the Public Distribution System (PDS), was created in 1991 to combat UN-imposed economic sanctions.

Impoverished Iraqis continue to depend on the system, which has become corrupt and wasteful over the years as well as severely curtailed in conflict zones.

The FAO estimates there are around 2.4 million people in Iraq who do not have access to nutritious food that meets their dietary needs.

Islamic State set itself apart from militant groups like Al Qaeda by holding territory and attempting to create an administration that could deliver basic services in order to win public support. But the group failed in areas such as farming.

For one thing, the militants did not match government prices, farmers said. While the state used to pay double the market price for commodities such as wheat, for example, Islamic State paid below the global average.

“They were paying farmers around $200 a ton while the government used to pay up to $600 a ton,” Zubi said.

Ghanem Hussein used to work 100 donhums (250,000 square meters) of wheat and barley crops below mountain ranges. When the jihadists showed up, his planting shrunk to 10 donhums because he didn’t fully cooperate with them.

“They did not buy anything from us. I just grew enough to feed my animals. Total destruction,” said Hussein, throwing seeds by hand on a small plot of land around his house in the village of Omar Khabshi.

He now fears for the safety of his children because dogs that ate corpses left on roadsides by fighting are biting people in his village.

NO HOPE

Islamic State’s failure to meet the basic needs of Iraqis would likely undermine any bid to make a comeback in the country as it tries to recover from losses in Syria and Libya, farmers said.

But the government is not offering much hope either, they said, with most of its resources directed at driving the militants out of Mosul.

Farmer Abdel Hakim Ali, 45, used to sell 50-100 tonnes of wheat and barley annually to state-run silos before Islamic State arrived. He and other farmers have contacted the government to see if the old arrangements could be revived.

Parts of a bulldozer are seen at a farm in the town of Basheeqa, Iraq,

Parts of a bulldozer are seen at a farm in the town of Basheeqa, Iraq, February 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

“They said to wait because the budget is weak,” said Ali. “The state is failing. This is our government. They said wait for God’s mercy.”

This is a familiar story to farmers. When Islamic State took over Mosul in June 2014, farmers in the region had still not received government payments for the wheat they had sold that year.

Kadhum al-Bahadli, the government’s advisor on agricultural affairs, said efforts were underway to pay and compensate farmers and offer loans for seeds despite low oil prices and deteriorating state finances.

“The government has already put plans to compensate Mosul farmers for the wheat delivered to silos before the occupation of Daesh. They should be patient as the process is complicated and needs more time.”

Aref Hassan, head of a farmers association in Basheeqa with 1,100 members, showed Reuters photographs of a town once surrounded by green fields that was reduced to rubble in the effort to dislodge jihadists.

Only a few families have returned.

Hassan walked through an olive grove, despairing at the sight of one tree after another burned by militants in an apparent bid to create smoke to evade airstrikes.

Reviving the grove could take a decade, he said. For now, there are more pressing concerns.

“There are still mines and improvised explosive devices on a lot of land so farmers can’t work,” he said.

“We hope that international organizations and demining organizations will clean up the farming areas. The farmer cannot go back to his land until these farms are cleared.”

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Iraqi forces wage psychological war with jihadist corpses

By Michael Georgy

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – The flyblown corpses of Islamic State militants have been rotting along a main street in north Mosul for two weeks, a health risk for passersby. Suicide bombers’ belts beside the fighters can still explode, killing anyone nearby.

But the Iraqi army has no intention of burying the jihadists and hopes as many people as possible will get a good look at their blackened bodies, torn apart by bombs and bullets.

As Iraqi forces prepare to expand their offensive against Islamic State from east to west Mosul, they want to stamp out any sympathy that residents may have for the group, which won instant support when it seized the vast city in 2014.

“We will leave the terrorists there,” said Ibrahim Mohamed, a soldier who was standing near three dead jihadists, ignoring the stench.

His cousin suffered death by electrocution at the hands of jihadists during Islamic State’s harsh rule of Mosul because he was a policeman.

“The message is clear to Iraqis, to keep them from joining or supporting Daesh (Islamic State). This will be your fate. The Iraqi army will finish you off,” he said.

A suicide bomber’s belt, with its detonation pin still in place, lay in the street a few feet away, near some clothing once worn by a militant.

The Iraqi army has come a long way since it collapsed in the face of Islamic State’s lightning advance into northern Iraq. After retaking half of Mosul in three months of fighting, Iraqi forces are poised to enter the western side of the city.

Victory there would mean the end of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate, though Iraqi officials expect the group to fight on as insurgents in Iraq and inspire attacks in the West.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WEAPON

The corpses are left on view as a psychological weapon to deter Islamic State sleeper cells, which Iraqi officials say are highly effective and distributed across the country.

Islamic State has executed thousands of Iraqi soldiers and policemen, and their comrades are eager for revenge.

“We leave them in the street like that so the dogs eat them,” said soldier Asaad Hussein. “We also want the citizens to know there is a price for supporting terrorists.”

Sunni Mosul had accused the Shi’ite-led Baghdad government and army of widespread abuses, which they deny.

Islamic State exploited that resentment but started losing popularity after it imposed its radical version of Islam and shot or beheaded anyone deemed an enemy.

Iraqi citizens don’t seem to mind the gory sight of the bodies, with people walking past them every day as Mosul begins the work of rebuilding entire neighborhoods pulverized by Islamic State car bombs and U.S.-led air strikes.

Labourer Youssef Salim observed the corpses, still with army boots on their feet, and paused to reflect on life under Islamic State, which has lost ground in Iraq and other Arab countries. He said the bodies should not be moved.

“Do you know what smoking one, just one cigarette meant?” he asked. “Twenty-five lashes in a public square where people were forced to watch you suffer.

“If your beard length did not meet their requirements, that was a month in jail and 100 lashes in public.”

SPREADING FEAR

The militants are no longer in charge in east Mosul but they are still very capable of spreading fear.

Two men approached a soldier to complain that there were suspicious wires that may be attached to a bomb on a door at the factory where they work.

Minutes later, an increasingly familiar scene unfolded. Soldiers looked up and spotted a drone aircraft operated by Islamic State militants, located about 600 meters away across the Tigris River, which bisects Mosul.

Iraqi forces opened fired with their assault rifles, hoping to blast the small aircraft – an Islamic State weapon of choice – out of the sky before it could drop a bomb.

A few streets away, a group of young boys walked towards three more Islamic State corpses.

“The bodies should stay. Daesh killed lots of people so why should they be buried,” said Salem Jamil, 13, who was carrying a plastic bag filled with old electric wiring he hopes to sell.

But a man who approached said the bodies should be buried because that is everyone’s right.

The three militants were shot when they tried to sneak through some trees to kill soldiers.

One of the soldiers stood proudly over the dead men, including one still wearing a suicide belt. He smiled and pointed to a cigarette stuffed in one of the jihadist’s nostrils.

“We put it there because of the terrible things they did to Iraqis,” said the soldier, Asaad Najif. “The fate of any terrorist is clear. We will find you and kill you.”

(Editing by Giles Elgood)

At former jihadist training camp, Iraqi police face drones, crack snipers

Iraqi federal police

By Michael Georgy

MOSUL (Reuters) – As a walkie-talkie carried word of another casualty from an Islamic State mortar attack, an Iraqi policeman peered through leaves at enemy positions just across the Tigris River. He kept his head low to avoid snipers but also had an eye on the sky.

Minutes later, the militants sent a drone overhead. It carried out surveillance and dropped an explosive. Then mortar bombs landed nearby, sending the policemen running for safer ground.

More than three months into the battle to drive them from their biggest stronghold, the hardline Sunni militants of Islamic State remain lethal and determined, despite being driven from the eastern half of the city of more than a million people.

Few are more acutely aware of the danger they pose than police Lt-Colonel Falah Hammad Hindi, who instructed his men to take cover as mortars landed ever closer.

“The weapon of choice is the drone,” said Hindi, whose unit faces sometimes 16 drone attacks in a single day as well as mortar bombs and snipers.

His unit, charged with holding ground while Iraqi troops prepare to expand their offensive to west Mosul, is stationed on a former Islamic State training ground and closed military area on the east bank of the Tigris.

He has gained insight into the militants’ thinking and strengths and gave a frank assessment of their capabilities, starting with the snipers he can spot without binoculars.

“The snipers are highly effective. They are foreign fighters, the most committed,” Hindi told Reuters.

When Islamic State swept into Mosul in 2014 and declared a caliphate on land straddling Iraq and Syria, they attracted volunteers from as far afield as Afghanistan and Tunisia and also won many sympathizers in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

POTATOES AND DATES

Mosul’s predominantly Sunni population was angered by Iraq’s Shi’ite-dominated army, accusing it of widespread abuses of their minority sect, allegations rejected by the government.

Islamic State exploited that resentment, hunting down and executing members of the army and police as it tightened its grip on Mosul and simultaneously attracting local volunteers who saw it, initially, as a bulwark against Shi’ite power.

New recruits were trained at the site where Hindi and his men are now based, a former plant nursery, family park and state-owned honey farm.

Here they learned the group’s credo, a version of Islam even more radical than its predecessor in Iraq, al Qaeda.

Trees and lush greenery provided ideal cover from air strikes, so jihadists could become indoctrinated in relative safety. To be extra cautious, the militants built an underground tunnel with sandbags for air raids.

Aside from weapons training, jihadists learned discipline. They were made to suffer in the cold when it rained or snowed.

“Some men were fed only a few potatoes per week,” said Hindi, who lost a brother to an Islamic State attack. “Others were only allowed to eat three dates per day. They became battle-ready here.”

In order to battle Islamic State militants positioned about 500 meters across the river at a hospital and hotel, policemen study their training for clues.

They also rely on intelligence from residents of west Mosul, turned against Islamic State by the brutality of its rule.

“They hide in their homes and provide information about the jihadists. Their movements, their weapons,” said Hindi, 32.

The risks are high. Some informers have been executed.

The campaign for west Mosul will likely involve far tougher and more complex street fighting because the west’s narrow streets mean far fewer tanks and armored vehicles can be deployed against Islamic State.

The militants are also expected to put up a much fiercer fight in the western half of Mosul because the battle will determine whether their self-proclaimed caliphate will survive.

“They have no escape route in the west so they will fight to the death,” said Hindi.

The conflict will play to the group’s strengths: suicide bombers, whom Hindi said were being reserved and positioned for that battle, car bombs and booby traps.

Just as Hindi and his men made it to what they thought was a more secure area, they took cover behind trees, after concluding another drone was circling above. A mortar bomb landed a few hundred meters away.

Eventually he sat in his office, discussing future challenges over cups of sweet tea. Another senior officer, who also lost a brother to jihadists, paid a visit.

“Two days ago, 38 terrorists snuck over the river in a boat to carry out an attack,” he told Hindi. The men were killed.

“They want to show they are still a threat and in control.”

Even if Islamic State is defeated in all of Mosul, the Shi’ite-led government and army faces the daunting task of easing sectarian tensions and winning over the Sunni city, once a vibrant trade hub.

“It all depends on how the army behaves,” said Hindi. “If there are abuses again, a new generation of Daesh (Islamic State) fighters will be back.”

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

WFP, short of funds, halves food rations to displaced Iraqis

Displaced Iraqis flee their homes while battles go on with Islamic State

By Ayat Basma

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – The World Food Programme said on Friday it had halved the food rations distributed to 1.4 million Iraqis displaced in the war against Islamic State because of delays in payments of funds from donor states.

“This year somehow we are receiving commitments from donors a little bit late, we are talking with donors but we don’t have enough money as of yet,” said Inger Marie Vennize, spokeswoman for the U.N. agency.

“We have had to reduce (the rations) as of this month.”

The WFP is talking to the United States – its biggest donor – Germany, Japan and others to secure funds to restore full rations, she added.

“The 50 percent cuts in monthly rations affect over 1.4 million people across Iraq,” Vennize said.

The impact is already being felt in camps east of Mosul, the northern city controlled in part by Islamic State. About 160,000 people have been displaced since the military campaign to recapture Mosul from the Islamists was launched in October.

“They gave us a good amount of food in the beginning, but now they have reduced it,” said Omar Shukri Mahmoud at the Hassan Sham camp.

“They are giving an entire family the food supply of one person … And there is no work at all … we want to go back home,” he added.

“We are a big family and this ration is not going to be enough,” said 39-year-old Safa Shaker, who has a family of 11.

“We escaped from Daesh (Islamic State) in order to have a chance to live and now we came here and they have cut the aid. How are we supposed to live?” she said as she cooked for the family.

About 3 million people have been displaced from their homes in Iraq since 2014, when Islamic State took over large areas of the country and of neighboring Syria.

(With assistance by Girish Gupta; Writing by Saif Hameed; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Exchanging fire across the Tigris as battle for west Mosul looms

Iraq army soldiers fire back at Islamic State in Mosul

By Michael Georgy

MOSUL (Reuters) – An Iraqi soldier stared patiently through a high-powered scope until he spotted a bulldozer across the Tigris River. He alerted his elite unit, which fired a missile with a boom so loud it blew a metal door behind the soldiers off its hinges.

The target, which was being used to dig earth berms to fortify Islamic State positions, exploded into a blaze that sent white smoke into the sky.

Militants could be seen gathering at the bulldozer as it burned. Some arrived on foot, others in a pickup truck or on a motorcycle, seemingly unfazed by the prospect of another rocket landing.

“The terrorist driving that bulldozer is burning. He is cooked,” said Mostafa Majeed, the soldier manning the scope.

In three months of Iraq’s biggest military operation since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, government forces have seized most of east Mosul.

But they have yet to cross the Tigris, leaving the western half of the city still firmly in the hands of the jihadists, who declared their caliphate here two and a half years ago.

Now, the troops are firing across the river to harass the militants and disrupt their fortifications, in preparation for the next phase of the campaign: the fight for the other side.

“The idea is to keep making life tough for them from our position, to kill them and prevent them from escaping as other forces surround them from other directions,” Major Mohamed Ali told Reuters.

The methodical advance of Iraqi forces is a sharp contrast to 2014, when the army collapsed and fled in the face of a force of only an estimated 800 Islamic State militants that swept into Mosul and swiftly seized a third of Iraq.

The soldiers appear disciplined as they position themselves on rooftops behind green sandbags, painstakingly watching the militants’ every move through binoculars and scopes, hoping to get a clear shot with sniper rifles.

To get a closer look, the men send up a computer-operated white drone aircraft, propelling it over Islamic State territory for more accurate intelligence.

Islamic State militants are gathered at their stronghold of Abu Seif village below steep hills and Mosul Airport, just beyond the Tigris.

The group is expected to put up fierce resistance when the next phase of the offensive kicks off, possibly within days.

If the militants lose Mosul, that would probably mark the end of their self-proclaimed caliphate that has ruled over millions of people in Iraq and Syria. Iraqi authorities and their U.S. allies still expect the fighters to wage an insurgency in Iraq and inspire attacks against the West.

Militants could be seen, through a scope, monitoring the rapid reaction force from the other side of the river.

“They watch us, we watch them,” said Majeed as he spotted a vehicle on the move.

Although there are plenty of rockets like the one that took out the bulldozer, the Iraqi forces say they use the heavy weapons only against important targets or when there is a substantial gathering of jihadists in one spot.

“If it is fewer than nine terrorists we hold fire,” said one soldier.

Snipers are used more freely. One hid a few hundred feet from the east bank of the Tigris and opened fire every ten minutes or so.

Hours after the rocket demolished the bulldozer, Islamic State retaliated, firing a series of mortars towards the rapid reaction force.

One crashed a few streets away. Another landed closer. A third hit the river about 200 meters away.

(Editing by Peter Graff)

Florida airport shooting suspect indicted on 22 criminal counts

law enforcement walk at ft. lauderdale airport

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) – A federal grand jury has indicted on 22 criminal counts an Iraq war veteran suspected of killing five people in a mass shooting at a Florida airport this month, U.S. prosecutors said on Thursday.

Esteban Santiago, 26, is accused of opening fire in the baggage claim area of the Fort Lauderdale airport on Jan. 6. The charges against him include multiple counts of violence at an airport resulting in death and injury, as well as firearms crimes.

If convicted, he could be punished by life imprisonment or death. The U.S. Attorney General has not decided whether to seek a death sentence, the prosecutors office said.

The indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in Broward County, Florida, where the attack occurred, prosecutors in the U.S. Southern District of Florida said in a news release.

Authorities said Santiago aimed at victims’ heads and bodies until he ran out of ammunition and was taken into custody. Five people were killed in the attack and six others wounded.

The indictment accuses Santiago of “substantial planning and premeditation to cause the death of a person.”

The attack was the latest in a series of deadly U.S. mass shootings, some inspired by Islamist militants, others carried out by loners or the mentally disturbed.

Santiago had a history of erratic behavior. Authorities have said they were investigating whether mental illness played a role in the shooting.

Court records show he is being represented by a public defender. A representative answering calls for the office said it had no immediate comment.

An arraignment hearing in Santiago’s case is scheduled in federal court in Fort Lauderdale on Monday.

A private first class in the National Guard who served in Iraq from 2010 to 2011, Santiago traveled from Alaska to Florida on a one-way airline ticket with a handgun and ammunition in his checked luggage, according to authorities.

Upon arrival, he claimed his gun case and loaded the weapon in a men’s bathroom, investigators said in a criminal complaint. He opened fire on the first people he saw after leaving the restroom, it said.

Santiago told investigators he was inspired by Islamic State and had previously chatted online with Islamist extremists, according to FBI testimony presented in court.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and James Dalgleish)

Islamic State fighters redeploy in west Mosul after Iraqi forces take east

grenades left by Islamic State at children's school

By Maher Chmaytelli

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters have taken up sniper positions in buildings on the west bank of the Tigris river ahead of an expected government offensive into that side the city, locals said on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday his forces had taken complete control of eastern Mosul, and the commander of the campaign to retake Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq has said preparations to cross the Tigris are under way.

IS fighters have moved in recent days into Mosul’s main medical complex made up of a dozen buildings located between two of the city’s five bridges – positions that can be used for observation and sniper fire, local residents told Reuters.

The tallest is seven storeys, one resident said, asking not to be identified as the militants execute those caught speaking with the outside world.

Some 750,000 people live in western Mosul, according to the United Nations which has voiced grave concerns for civilians in an area beyond the reach of aid organizations.

It took 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of regional Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries, backed by air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition, almost 100 days to retake eastern Mosul in what has become the biggest battle in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

Taking the west side – the location of Mosul’s Grand Mosque where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” in 2014 – could prove even tougher as it is crisscrossed by streets too narrow for armored vehicles.

The Sunni Muslim jihadists are expected to put up a fierce fight as they are cornered in a shrinking area but the narrow streets could also deprive them of one of their most effective weapons: suicide-car bombs.

The group released drone footage on Wednesday of cars driving at high speed into clusters of army Humvees and armored vehicles before blowing up.

In some cases, Iraqi soldiers can be seen running away as the car bombs speed toward them. The recordings also show munitions dropped from the drones.

Iraqi forces estimated the number of militants inside Mosul at 5,000-6,000 at the start of the battle, and have said 3,300 have been killed in the fighting.

More than 160,000 civilians have been displaced since the start of the offensive in Mosul, which had a pre-war population of about 2 million, U.N. officials say. Aid agencies estimate the dead and wounded – both civilian and military – at several thousand.

“The reports from inside western Mosul are distressing,” U.N. humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande said on Tuesday.

“Prices of basic food and supplies are soaring … Many families without income are eating only once a day. Others are being forced to burn furniture to stay warm.”

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Islamic State fighters redeploy in west Mosul after Iraqi forces take east

Iraqi rapid response

By Maher Chmaytelli

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters have taken up sniper positions in buildings on the west bank of the Tigris river ahead of an expected government offensive into that side the city, locals said on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday his forces had taken complete control of eastern Mosul, and the commander of the campaign to retake Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq has said preparations to cross the Tigris are under way.

IS fighters have moved in recent days into Mosul’s main medical complex made up of a dozen buildings located between two of the city’s five bridges – positions that can be used for observation and sniper fire, local residents told Reuters.

The tallest is seven storeys, one resident said, asking not to be identified as the militants execute those caught speaking with the outside world.

Some 750,000 people live in western Mosul, according to the United Nations which has voiced grave concerns for civilians in an area beyond the reach of aid organizations.

It took 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of regional Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries, backed by air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition, almost 100 days to retake eastern Mosul in what has become the biggest battle in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

Taking the west side – the location of Mosul’s Grand Mosque where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” in 2014 – could prove even tougher as it is crisscrossed by streets too narrow for armored vehicles.

The Sunni Muslim jihadists are expected to put up a fierce fight as they are cornered in a shrinking area but the narrow streets could also deprive them of one of their most effective weapons: suicide-car bombs.

The group released drone footage on Wednesday of cars driving at high speed into clusters of army Humvees and armored vehicles before blowing up.

In some cases, Iraqi soldiers can be seen running away as the car bombs speed toward them. The recordings also show munitions dropped from the drones.

Iraqi forces estimated the number of militants inside Mosul at 5,000-6,000 at the start of the battle, and have said 3,300 have been killed in the fighting.

More than 160,000 civilians have been displaced since the start of the offensive in Mosul, which had a pre-war population of about 2 million, U.N. officials say. Aid agencies estimate the dead and wounded – both civilian and military – at several thousand.

“The reports from inside western Mosul are distressing,” U.N. humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande said on Tuesday.

“Prices of basic food and supplies are soaring … Many families without income are eating only once a day. Others are being forced to burn furniture to stay warm.”

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

U.N. ‘racing’ to prepare emergency aid ahead of battle for western Mosul

buildings destroyed in war for Mosul

By Maher Chmaytelli

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Tuesday it is “racing against the clock” to prepare emergency aid for hundreds of thousands of endangered civilians in Mosul with an Iraqi army offensive looming to oust Islamic State from the western half of the city.

Iraqi officials said on Monday government forces had taken complete control of eastern Mosul, 100 days after the start of their U.S.-backed campaign to retake Iraq’s second largest city from IS insurgents who seized it in 2014.

U.N. officials estimate 750,000 people remain in Mosul west of the Tigris River that flows through the last remaining major urban center held by Islamic State in Iraq, after a series of government counter-offensives in the country’s north and west.

The west side could prove more complicated to take than the east as it is crisscrossed by streets too narrow for armored vehicles, allowing IS militants to hide among civilians.

The Sunni Muslim jihadists are expected to put up a fierce fight as they are cornered in a shrinking area of Mosul.

“We are racing against the clock to prepare for this,” U.N. humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande told Reuters. Humanitarian agencies were setting up displaced people camps accessible from western Mosul and pre-positioning supplies in them, she said.

“The reports from inside western Mosul are distressing,” she said in a separate statement. “Prices of basic food and supplies are soaring…Many families without income are eating only once a day. Others are being forced to burn furniture to stay warm.”

Government forces on Tuesday finished clearing the last eastern pocket held by militants – the northern suburb of Rashidiya, Major General Najm al-Jubbouri, commander of the northern front, told the local Mosuliya TV channel.

“The northern units completed the liberation of Rashidiya, the last stronghold of Daesh on the left bank,” he said, using one of the Arabic acronyms for Islamic State.

IS LAUNCHED “CALIPHATE” FROM MOSUL IN 2014

It was from Mosul’s Grand Mosque, on the western side, that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” under his rule in 2014, spanning large tracts of Iraq and Syria.

Mosul has been the largest city under IS control in either country, with a pre-war population of about two million.

A U.S.-led coalition is providing air and ground support to Iraqi forces in the battle that began on Oct. 17, the biggest in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

More than 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of regional Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries known as Popular Mobilisation are participating in the offensive.

Iraqi forces estimated the number of militants inside Mosul at 5,000-6,000 at the start of operations three months

ago, and say 3,300 have been killed in the fighting since.

Military preparations to recapture western Mosul have begun, with Popular Mobilisation militia preparing an operation in “the next two-three days” to pave the way for the main offensive on the western bank of the Tigris, the overall campaign commander, Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Yarallah, told Mosuliya TV.

Popular Mobilisation is a coalition of predominantly Iranian-trained Shi’ite groups formed in 2014 to join the fightback against Islamic State. It became an official part of the Iraqi armed forces last year.

More than 160,000 civilians have been displaced since the start of the offensive, U.N. officials say. Medical and humanitarian agencies estimate the total number of dead and wounded – both civilian and military – at several thousand.

Islamic State has “continued to attack those fleeing or attempting to flee areas that are controlled by it”, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in Geneva on Tuesday, and was also shelling districts retaken by the army.

The militants blew up a landmark hotel in western Mosul on

Friday in an apparent attempt to prevent advancing Iraqi forces

from using it as a base or a sniper position once fighting shifts west of the Tigris. The Mosul Hotel, shaped like a stepped pyramid, stands close to the river.

State television said the army had set up temporary bridges across the Tigris south of the city limits to allow troops to cross in preparation for the offensive on western districts.

Mosul’s five permanent bridges across the Tigris have

been damaged by U.S.-led air strikes, and IS blew up two.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad and Tom Miles in Geneva; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Bomb classes and gun counts: trauma of Mosul children under Islamic State

schoolchildren heading for schools after registering and receiving school bags

By Girish Gupta

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Schools in the east of the Iraqi city of Mosul are seeking to return to a semblance of normality after two years under Islamic State rule when they were either shuttered or forced to teach a martial curriculum that included lessons in bombmaking.

Around 40,000 students – most of whom have been kept at home by their parents since the militants captured Mosul in 2014 – will attend around 70 schools in the coming weeks after the buildings have been checked for unexploded bombs.

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces have retaken most eastern districts of the city and are preparing to push into the western part of Mosul, the largest city held by Islamic State across its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

Teachers and parents told Reuters about the jihadists’ brand of education received by those children who have attended school over the past two years, including many children of militants. This included chemistry lessons on bombmaking and maths classes devoted to tallying up weapons caches, they said.

“In math, my six-year-old son was counting rifles. In other classes, he was being taught about suicide bombing,” said Mishwan Yunis, a 41-year-old water ministry worker whose son attends Kufa Boys’ School.

“He lost two very important years of his life. He should have been in the third grade; now he goes back to first.”

The northern city is coming back to life with markets and shops reopening and people selling once-prohibited goods such as cigarettes openly on the streets yet the damage of battle is everywhere – and fighting rages just a few kilometers away.

At Kufa Boys’ School, children run around the concrete yard wearing new bright blue school bags provided by UNICEF, in the shadow of neighboring buildings reduced to rubble.

One schoolyard in the area has been turned into a cemetery covered with dozens of freshly dug graves.

Yet a return to normality will not be easy for children, who bears the scars of living in the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq and the bitter battle for the city since late last year when Iraqi forces launched the biggest ground operation in the country since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

They could face psychological hurdles, as might their teachers, many of who told Reuters they had been threatened with being hung from their schools’ walls if they did not continue teaching under Islamic State.

“Our role is bigger now than it was two or three years ago because you need to deal with the children’s psychological state before you can teach them,” said Omar Khudor Ali, headteacher of nearby Badayel Boys’ School.

“For us to do this we need better coordination between the teachers themselves and the entire education system.”

“I need to make them forget Islamic State and be free again,” said a teacher at the adjacent Badayel Girls’ School who asked that her name not be revealed for fear of retaliation by Islamic State, fighting Iraqi forces across a nearby river.

(Editing by Pravin Char)