A week after his tank division punched through Islamic State defences on the southeast edge of Mosul, an Iraqi army colonel says the fight to drive the militants out of their urban stronghold is turning into a nightmare.
Against a well-drilled, mobile and brutally effective enemy, exploiting the cover of built-up neighbourhoods and the city’s civilian population, his tanks were useless, he said, and his men untrained for the urban warfare they face.
His Ninth Armoured Division and elite counter terrorism units fighting nearby seized six of some 60 neighbourhoods last week, the first gains inside Mosul since the October 17 start of a campaign to crush Islamic State in its Iraqi fortress.
Even that small foothold is proving hard to maintain, however, with waves of counter attacks by jihadist units including snipers and suicide bombers who use a network of tunnels stretching 4km under the city.
Toughest urban war
Even for the Counter Terrorism Service, or special forces, trained more specifically for the challenges in Mosul, the last week of fighting has been unprecedented.
“We are carrying out the toughest urban warfare that any force in the world could undertake”, CTS spokesman Sabah al-Numani said on Sunday.
One CTS officer, in Baghdad on leave, told Reuters the biggest threat came from snipers. “You don’t know where or when a sniper will strike,” he said. That, combined with thousands of people trying to escape the fighting, was a constant source of stress.
As he spoke, a voice on his radio crackled - one of his men on the frontline. “Sir, there are so many civilians, they have these suitcases with them as well. How do I know what’s in them? And they’re coming towards me...”
Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who declared a cross border caliphate in Syria and Iraq from the pulpit of a Mosul mosque two years ago, told his fighters last week there could be no retreat in a “total war” with their enemies.Crashing waves
Hashemi said government forces were only in full control of two of the districts they entered last week.
The army says it has captured five other districts, but fighting continues in all of them and Hashemi said in some neighbourhoods the army had been driven back three or four times - often at night - before reclaiming territory the next day.
With its tanks unable to navigate narrow city streets, the Iraqi army has called on US Apache helicopters to target car bombers. The Pentagon said on Monday they would continue to be used “in what we expect will be tough fighting to come”.
