Children play next to a burning oil field in Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — Iraqi special forces began their assault into more urban neighborhoods of Mosul from its easternmost district on Friday, the military’s latest push to drive Islamic State fighters from the city.
The advance began with artillery and mortar strikes on the Aden, Tahrir and Quds districts, just west of special forces footholds in the Gogjali and Karama neighborhoods, Lt. Col. Muhanad al-Timimi told The Associated Press.
The Islamic State group is fighting to hold Iraq’s second city of Mosul as Iraqi forces and allied Kurdish troops squeeze in from all directions with US-led coalition support, mostly with airstrikes and reconnaissance.
On Tuesday, Iraqi troops entered the city limits for the first time in more than two years, gearing up for urban warfare expected to take weeks, if not months.
A boy displaced by fighting stands close to his flock of sheep in the village of Bazwaya, some 8 kilometers from the center of Mosul, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)
More than 1 million civilians are stuck in the city, complicating the military’s efforts to advance without harming innocents. IS militants have driven thousands of them deeper into the city’s built-up areas, presumably for use as human shields, while hundreds others have fled in the past days toward government-controlled territory despite the uncertainty of resettlement in displacement camps.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
An Iraqi special forces soldier puts up a helmet as a decoy while a sniper gets ready to fire on Islamic State positions in Gogjali, on the eastern edges of Mosul, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)
Mosul is the last major IS stronghold in Iraq, and driving the militant group from the city would be a major blow to the survival of its self-declared “caliphate” that stretches into Syria. IS seized Mosul and other territory in 2014, routing the much larger Iraqi military, which had been neglected and demoralized by corruption.
People queue to receive aid packages in Gogjali, on the eastern edge of Mosul, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.
Advertisement
Discover Israel's most beloved poet
She died more than four decades ago, but Leah Goldberg remains a magnetic and enigmatic figure: Israel’s most beloved poet, a powerful woman who lived with her mother and never married, who reinvented herself from the ashes of World War I through her magical writing.
You can screen 'The Five Houses of Leah Goldberg' June 4-11. Join The Times of Israel Community today to support our work and watch this and other outstanding documentary films in our DocuNation series.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
