Layers of hastily erected barricades built from rubble and twisted metal trace Mosul’s eastern frontline where Iraqi forces and Islamic State group fighters are facing off in the dense neighborhoods and narrow alleyways of the country’s second largest city.
(FOX)- As the operation to retake Mosul enters its second month on Thursday, Iraqi forces are preparing for prolonged, grueling urban combat.
They have slowed the tempo of their operations, advancing just a few hundred meters at a time. Iraqi forces have gathered troops many times the estimated 5,000 IS fighters in the city.
But hundreds of thousands of civilians still remain in the city. And the ferocity and magnitude of IS counterattacks and defenses in Mosul is unlike anything Iraqi forces have confronted in the fight against the militant group so far. As a result, overwhelming force can’t bring swift victory, and the campaign is likely to take weeks.
Iraqi forces have advanced the furthest and faced the heaviest resistance in Mosul’s east. Iraq’s special forces say they control significant pockets of four of Mosul’s easternmost neighborhoods: Zahra, Qadisiya, Tahrir and Gogjali. The territory measures less than a tenth of the city’s total area.
Inside those neighborhoods, Iraqi forces are now surrounded by thousands of civilians as they continue to push to the city center. The presence of civilians has already thwarted the use of overwhelming air power to clear territory.
Iraqi officers say they also worry that IS supporters among the civilians are helping the group.