Iraqi forces stop using heavy guns, missiles in Mosul battles

The Iraqi Joint Operations Command issued direct orders to the Iraqi security forces to stop using heavy guns and homemade rockets, to rely on street warfare methods, to use small and medium arms and shoulder-fired missiles as well as deploying hundreds of snipers over buildings in Mosul city, with the resumption of fighting.

The move comes after the Joint Operations Command decided to review its military plans during its attack on the old Mosul area, especially as a large number of civilians are killed every day due to the fighting, while more than a quarter of a million people are trapped inside alleys of Mosul, and other areas still under the control of ISIS in Mosul.

The Commander of the Rapid Response Forces, Abdul Amir Mohammedawi, said that the federal police forces embarked on a new military operation in the old Mosul area, and if it is not possible to achieve progress, the forces will be circumvented and move to other neighborhoods, to isolate the area completely from the rest of the city.

Iraqi forces should control 12 residential neighborhoods before announcing the success of the battle, namely the old neighborhoods of Mosul, Zanzili, Arabi, Najjar, Rifa'i, al-Thawra, Arabiya, al-Eslah al-Zera'ey, Al-Haramat and Hawy Al-Kanisa as well as other villages in which between 250 to 300 thousand people live in, according to Iraqi government sources.

Thousands of families were forced to flee south-west of Mosul because of intensified fighting and indiscriminate shelling by Iraqi security forces and members of the Da'ash organization, as well as the families besieged by starvation and thirst after they had run out of supplies since the beginning of military operations in western Mosul.

The number of refugees displaced by battles between Iraqi security forces and Islamic State militants in Mosul reached 415.000 since security operations launched in October, according to the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights (IOHR).

This is the number of people displaced since the Iraqi government launched a U.S.-backed offensive to recapture Iraq’s second largest city and IS’s largest stronghold in Iraq, IOHR said.
 
The organization voiced concern for the lives of refugees both inside and outside refugee camps. It quoted some refugees from western Mosul saying they preferred to seek shelter with relatives in Mosul’s recaptured eastern side rather than stay at refugee camps in Hammam al-Alil district where “nothing would help them stay,” as they put it.
 
Others were quoted by the organization saying it was “difficult to live in camps due to the absence of daily livelihood requirements.”
 
The Iraqi government has recently said that 181.000 people fled western Mosul since operations launched in February to retake that area, driving the total of those displaced since October to 355.000.

The United Nations had warned that battles in Mosul could displace at least 400.000 out of 750.000 living in western Mosul, and said in 2016 the offensive to retake the city could force at least 1.5 million people to flee homes in the city.

On the other hand, Kirkuk Provincial Council voted, on Tuesday, in favor of a draft resolution to raise the flag of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, amid a boycott of Arab members and Turkmen, in a decision that would cause tension in the province.

For his part, the head of the region, Masoud Barzani, distanced from the crisis and its consequences, considering that those who will be responsible for it is the "Union Party", his first political rival in the region.

The governor of Kirkuk, the leader of the Kurdistan Alliance, Negm El-Deen Karim, defended his decision by saying that the flag of Kurdistan was raised in Turkey, referring to Barzani's visit to Ankara in late February and raising the Kurdish flag. He said that Peshmerga forces are currently protecting Kirkuk from ISIS and for years, according to him.

For its part, the government in Baghdad responded through an official statement issued by the office of the Prime Minister, Haider Abadi, in which it is necessary to raise the Iraqi flag alone in Kirkuk, describing the lifting of the flag of Kurdistan as "unconstitutional." The statement added that the government rejects all unilateral positions in this regard, indicating that the Constitution clarified the powers of local governments.