Page 10 - ARUBA TODAY

A10 WORLD NEWS
Friday 19 May 2017

Airstrikes fuel Mosul gains as Iraq pushes for quick victory

SUSANNAH GEORGE from the Pentagon, which broken every window in
Associated Press is slower in confirming their house. Their street had
MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — Half a deaths, are far lower: It said been declared liberated
dozen units of Islamic State last month that it has con- the day before but the fight
group fighters holed up in firmed coalition airstrikes was still so close that the
western Mosul began their killed at least 352 civilians force of nearby explosions
morning radio checks at in Iraq and Syria com- filled their living room with
just after 4 a.m. It was still bined since the campaign dust and blew open the
dark and Iraqi forces de- against IS started in 2014. curtains they had pulled
ployed a few blocks away The March 17 incident closed over the shattered
were listening in as they sparked outrage in Iraq and window frames.
prepared an advance on beyond. The U.N. called on Muhammed said two air-
the city’s al-Rifai neighbor- Iraq to conduct “an urgent strikes hit on either side of
hood. review of tactics to ensure her home over the past
“Thirty, what’s new? ... 120, that the impact on civilians week. One killed a single
do you read me? What’s is reduced to an absolute IS fighter in a neighboring
up?” the IS radio operator minimum.” garden and another killed
said, using Iraqi slag. The Pentagon is still inves- a three-member sniper
About 40 minutes later tigating the incident but team on the roof of anoth-
the first U.S.-led coalition Gen. Joseph Votel, head er house.
airstrike hit as Iraqi forces of U.S. Central Command, “If we hear only 10 explo-
pushed across a main said the munitions used by sions in a day, that’s very lit-
road and began clearing the U.S. that day should tle,” she said as her grand-
the neighborhood’s nar- not have taken the entire children sat quietly even
row streets. building down, suggesting as the walls around them
“We’re seeing at least two that militants may have shook. When the whine of
squirters at the impact deliberately gathered ci- a mortar sounded over-
site,” a member of the vilians there and planted head everyone mechani-
coalition force radioed other explosives. cally plugged their ears
back to the Iraqi troops in An Iraqi officer overseeing with their fingers. Soldiers
Australian-accented Eng- the Mosul operation said took cover in her garden
lish, using a slang term for that after the March 17 when a nearby airstrike
badly wounded IS fighters. Smoke from an airstrike rises in the background as a man flees strike, he received orders sent rubble raining down
Moments later the extrem- with a toddler during fighting between Iraqi special forces and to no longer target build- on the street outside.
Islamic State militants, in the al-Rifai neighborhood of western
ists were calling for doctors Mosul, Iraq, Wednesday, May 17, 2017. ings with munitions. Instead “This has become nor-
over their own radio net- Associated Press airstrikes were directed to mal for the children,” Mu-
work. the streets and gardens hammed said.
Over the next 12 hours, backed by heavy airstrikes front lines stalled at times, beside IS locations. But the Just over eight square kilo-
more than 10 coalition and artillery. the area was less dense- order lasted only a few meters (three square miles)
airstrikes hit al-Rifai’s east- Launched in mid-February, ly populated, neighbor- days. Now, as Iraq’s army, of western Mosul remains
ern edge. Most targeted the fight for Mosul’s western hoods were more modern special forces and milita- under IS control, but within
small teams of two or three sector has been marked by with wider streets allowing rized federal police push that area is the Old City —
IS fighters manning sniper some of the most difficult tanks and other armored to clear the last vestiges congested, densely popu-
rifles or machine guns so fighting and catastrophic vehicles greater freedom of western Mosul held by lated terrain that is expect-
Iraq’s special forces units destruction yet in Iraq’s war of movement and the area IS, the volume of airstrikes ed to present some of the
could advance on the against IS. The brutality of was never under siege, al- is the same as when the most difficult fighting and
ground. the operation was high- lowing many IS fighters to mission to retake western greatest danger to civil-
Military operations like the lighted by a single incident flee westward. Mosul first began, said the ians.
one in al-Rifai this week just a month into the op- The number of civilians re- officer, who spoke on con- The renewed push to drive
are accelerating in Mosul eration — a U.S. airstrike on portedly killed in coalition dition of anonymity in line IS out of the remaining
as part of a drive to retake March 17 that killed more airstrikes in Iraq and Syria with regulations. pockets still under its control
the handful of districts still than 100 people shelter- spiked to 1,800 in March, A few blocks from the front- was launched just over two
under IS control before the ing in a home, according more than three times the line advance, Faisa Mu- weeks ago and since then
holy month of Ramadan to residents and other wit- number reported a month hammed, her children and Iraqi forces have retaken
begins at the end of May. nesses interviewed by The earlier, according to Air- grandchildren huddled more than 30 square kilo-
And despite recent allega- Associated Press. wars, a London-based Tuesday on the ground meters (12 square miles),
tions of increased civilian By contrast, Mosul’s east- group that tracks civil- floor of their home. Car according to the U.S.-led
casualties, advances on ern half was retaken in ian deaths from coalition bombs, airstrikes and mor- coalition, forcing thou-
the ground continue to be 100 days of fighting. While airstrikes. Official figures tar attacks had already sands to flee. q