PrairiePundit

AFP/Business Insider: The UN said Friday that Islamic State group jihadists may be holding more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians as human shields in the Old City of Mosul. Iraqi forces are fighting to retake Mosul from IS, after the jihadist group overran the city in 2014, imposing its brutal rule on its inhabitants. The UN refugee agency's representative in Iraq, Bruno Geddo, said IS had been capturing civilians in battles outside of Mosul and had been forcing them into the Old City, one of the last parts of the city in their grip. "More than 100,000 civilians may still be held in the Old City," Geddo told reporters in Geneva. "We know that ISIS moved them with them as they left… locations where the fighting was going on," he said, using another acronym for IS, which is also known as Daesh or ISIL. "These civilians are basically held as human shields in the Old City." With virtually no food, water or electricity left in the area, the civilia...

Telegraph: Three years after the fall of Mosul, Isil makes a bloody final stand The fight to take Mosul back from ISIS has been one of the largest land battles since World War II.  ISIS took the city in a rout of Iraqi forces three years ago and the cost of taking it back has been high for both the military and the civilians in Mosul.   It is a stark reminder of President Obama's poor military judgment that he ordered a retreat of US forces from Iraq which led to ISIS taking over in a walk.  Democrats have never had to pay a political price for this incompetence, but they should.

USA Today: This Iraqi sniper picks off ISIS fighters as they hide behind human shields Yousef Ali peered through the scope of his Russian-made Dragunov sniper rifle. Through the small hole in the wall of an abandoned hotel, Ali saw the labyrinth of the Old City's narrow streets stretch before him. Less than 300 yards away, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, prepared for another sneak attack, surrounded by civilian human shields. "The (ISIS fighters) are out there," said the 20-year-old Iraqi federal policeman, taking his eyes off the scope for a moment. "Just behind those buildings." ... I suspect that this is one of the reasons why American Sniper is still a huge hit in Iraq despite what the anti-war left would have you believe.

Reuters: Islamic State has summarily killed 21 civilians in Mosul it accused of collaborating with U.S.-backed security forces, which said their offensive to recapture the city from the jihadists had made further advances. The killings, reported on Tuesday by a medical source, indicate that the ultra-hardline group has maintained its ability to police Mosul, more than four weeks after the start of the offensive on the northern Iraqi city. The campaign that began on Oct. 17 is the biggest military operation in Iraq in more than a decade of turmoil unleashed by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Counter terrorism forces breached Islamic State defenses in the east of the city two weeks ago but have faced resistance from the militants who have deployed suicide car bombs, snipers and waves of counter-attacks. They have been fighting in a dozen of the roughly 50 neighborhoods on the eastern side of the city, which is divided in two by the Tigris river running t...

BBC: Iraq's military has cast doubt on reports that an air strike by the US-led coalition caused the deaths of dozens of civilians in west Mosul. Instead it blamed explosive booby-traps set by so-called Islamic State (IS). The US said on Saturday that it was investigating an air strike on 17 March at "the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties". The Iraqi government offensive to drive IS from west Mosul continued on Sunday with helicopter gunships in action. "Ignore reports Iraq forces have paused Mosul offensive," the BBC's Jeremy Bowen tweeted from Mosul. "It continues. Have seen gunships firing and heard much activity in the last few hours." ... The Iraqi claim is plausible.  It is just the kind of thing that could be expected from ISIS forces.  ISIS is in a desperate fight and appears willing to pull down all those around them as they lose.

BBC: Iraqi security forces have launched an attack on Mosul airport, a key part of the government's offensive to drive so-called Islamic State (IS) militants from the western half of the city. They also stormed a nearby military camp, state TV said. It follows air strikes by the US-led coalition. The runway has already been destroyed by IS, but seizing such a large site would help the Iraqi army control southern routes into Mosul. Eastern Mosul was retaken last month. ... As ISIL is being forced out of its control of real estate within Iraq, there has been some indication that ISIL forces are infiltrating other areas acting more as insurgents than as government caliphate.  Removing them from control will likely not end the war with this group.

BBC: A British IS fighter who died in a suicide bomb attack on Iraqi forces in Mosul is a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, the BBC understands. The self-styled Islamic State group said two days ago that Abu-Zakariya al-Britani detonated a car bomb at an Iraqi army base in Tal Gaysum, south-west of Mosul. He is believed to have been originally known as Ronald Fiddler. Fiddler, 50 and from Manchester, was sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2002. IS has now published a photograph of Fiddler, who was also known as Jamul-Uddin al-Harith before taking the nom-du-guerre Abu-Zakariya al-Britani. He had been seized by US forces in Pakistan in 2001, before being sent to Guantanamo. US interrogators found he provided useful information to them about the Taliban's methods, and he was released after two years. The Daily Mail reported Fiddler received a million pounds in compensation from the government when he came back to the UK. ... I see two mistakes in this situation.  The Bush administration sho...

Washington Free Beacon: A shift in strategy combining a troop surge with increased coordination of artillery and air power has driven ISIS terrorists from their strongholds on the eastern bank of the Tigris river in the strategic city of Mosul, Iraq. American and allied aircraft, alongside U.S. advisers and thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police, have won the first phase of a campaign to retake the most populous city in northern Iraq. Col. John Dorrian of the U.S.-led Combined Joint Task Force said in an exclusive interview with the Washington Free Beacon that the new strategy, which was put into effect at dawn on Dec. 29 and continues to this day, is the reason coalition forces have been victorious over the past four weeks. The Iraqi government announced Jan. 24 that it had full control of east Mosul. Liberating west Mosul may be easier because of lessons learned, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. ... Increased coordination allowed for synchronized attacks carried out by the Ir...

Reuters: In the early days of the assault on Islamic State in Mosul, Iran successfully pressed Iraq to change its battle plan and seal off the city, an intervention which has since shaped the tortuous course of the conflict, sources briefed on the plan say. The original campaign strategy called for Iraqi forces to close in around Mosul in a horseshoe formation, blocking three fronts but leaving open the fourth - to the west of the city leading to Islamic State territory in neighboring Syria. That model, used to recapture several Iraqi cities from the ultra-hardline militants in the last two years, would have left fighters and civilians a clear route of escape and could have made the Mosul battle quicker and simpler. But Tehran, anxious that retreating fighters would sweep back into Syria just as Iran's ally President Bashar al-Assad was gaining the upper hand in his country's five-year civil war, wanted Islamic State crushed and eliminated in Mosul. The sources say Ir...

Telegraph: Intelligence of attack plots across Europe is being uncovered as Islamic State’s caliphate is beaten back, the top British officer in the military coalition fighting the extremists has disclosed. A trove of information has already been found and the capture of the Iraqi city of Mosul is expected to deliver more on the plans, finances and members of Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (Isil). Maj Gen Rupert Jones warned there were “no quick answers” in the fight to liberate Iraq’s second city, which has now entered its second month. ... The volume of intelligence being found is so large the coalition has set up a lab in the Gulf to plunder militants’ laptops, phones and drives for their secrets and then pass them to intelligence agencies. The capture of the Syrian town of Manbij, which acted as a gateway for jihadists travelling into Turkey and on to Europe, was an intelligence breakthrough, he said. But he warned the militants would still be able to direct plots while...

AP/Stripes: When Islamic State militants in Mosul discovered that Ahmed's brother had served in the army, they went to his house, pulled him into the street, and shot him dead as his parents watched. Now, it was time for revenge, and after two years of ferrying the extremists around as a taxi driver, Ahmed had plenty of information to offer special forces at a command post in an east Mosul apartment on Friday. "They're in this church, and only God knows what goes on in there," he told intelligence officers, pointing out map coordinates during a half-hour session. They met in a living room used to receive residents just a few blocks away from the battle, some seeking help, others being questioned, while the unlucky ones faced interrogation or stern reprimands for various infractions. Ahmed asked his full name be withheld for fear of reprisals. With heavy weapons less useful in the dense urban alleyways of Iraq's second city, local intelligence is growing in...

Reuters: U.S. forces backing an Iraqi army campaign against Islamic State in Mosul carried out an air strike on a bridge spanning the Tigris river, restricting militant movements between western and eastern parts of the city, a U.S. official said on Tuesday. U.S.-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service forces are pushing deeper into east Mosul, the last major city controlled by the Sunni hard-line group in Iraq, while army and police units, Shi'ite militias and Kurdish fighters surround it to the west, south and north. Militants have steadily retreated into Mosul from outlying areas. The army's early advances have slowed as militants dig in, using the more than 1 million civilians inside the city as a shield, moving through tunnels, and hitting troops with suicide bombers, snipers and mortar fire. Five bridges span the Tigris that runs through Mosul. They have all been mined and boobytrapped by militants who took over the city two years ago as they swept through norther...

Reuters: U.S.-backed rebels said on Sunday they were launching an operation to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of Islamic State. The attack ratchets up pressure on the militant group at a critical moment, with its fighters already battling an offensive by Iraqi security forces on their remaining Iraqi stronghold in the northern city of Mosul. The U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab armed groups, first announced on Sunday that a campaign to retake Raqqa would begin within hours, with U.S. forces providing air cover. Soon afterwards, it said that the operation, called Euphrates Anger, had begun. "The general command of the Syria Democratic Forces announces the blessed start of its major military campaign to liberate the city of Raqqa," Jehan Sheikh Amad, an SDF spokeswoman, told a news conference in the Syrian town of Ain Issa. The SDF called on Raqqa's civilians to avoid areas where Islamic State milita...

Sunday Telegraph: The Islamic State (Isil) has launched an “unprecedented” wave of suicide bombers, some of whom are children, against advancing Iraqi forces as the jihadist group struggles to hold on to its city stronghold of Mosul. More than a hundred suicide bombers have hurled themselves at Iraqi troops since the Mosul offensive began on October 17, a rate of self-annihilation never before seen even by the extreme standards of Isil. “The amount of people killing themselves is unprecedented. It’s completely different from anything we’ve seen before,” said Charlie Winter, a senior fellow at the ICSR think tank who tracks the use of suicide bombers. On one particularly bloody day on the battlefield in Mosul there were 18 separate suicide attacks within 24 hours. Mr Winter said that was more attacks than the al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, had carried out in 100 days. Many of the 102 suicide attacks have been carried out using improvised armoured vehicles which...

Telegraph: Waving white flags and looking in equal measure relieved and bewildered, civilians crowded into battered trucks and sedans rumbled down the road from Bazwaya. Earlier on Tuesday Iraqi troops based in this strategic village on the eastern outskirts of Mosul had launched their first assault on city limits, beginning what they called “the true liberation” of the city captured by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2014. Inside Bazwaya, white flags still hung from buildings where they had been placed the day before by residents keen to show they welcomed the Iraqi forces as they advanced into the village. On Tuesday, residents continued to leave, heading to Bartella, a small Christian town liberated by the Golden Division in October, and onto a newly built displacement camp at the nearby village of Khazer. A shepherd held up the traffic as he led his flock of sheep away from the fighting. Taking no chances, he too wielded a white piece of cloth on the back of h...

LA Times: An Iraqi band of brothers: They watch 'American Sniper' and play 'Call of Duty' – and they're out to recapture Mosul ... Hussein’s favorite movie is “Black Hawk Down.” His soldiers have seen “American Sniper” and “The Expendables,” some several times. Their Humvees are stenciled with the skull symbol of the American comic book hero “The Punisher,” adopted as an emblem by “American Sniper” Chris Kyle. They play “Call of Duty” and post selfies in uniform flashing peace signs. For meals, they must often deal with MREs, the standard field rations of the U.S. military. Many of his soldiers wear battlefield apparel manufactured by Southern California-based 5.11 Tactical. They carry American M-4 carbines. “Our supplies, training and equipment are American,” Hussein said, but, “I’m an Iraqi soldier.” ... This is a long piece but it gives a good feel for the combat operations against ISIL by some of Iraq's best troops.

Fox News: A renegade sniper has been striking fear into the hearts of ISIS thugs in Mosul — picking them off one-by-one, reports claim. The mysterious marksman — dubbed the “Sniper of Mosul” — is believed to be behind shootings in four separate neighborhoods in Iraq’s second largest city. But officials think the resistance fighter could be receiving help from other gunmen, according to the Daily Star. The sniper has been hunting down militants in broad daylight, with the most recent hit unfolding during a public beheading. Iraqi media outlets on Monday reported the shooter had killed an ISIS executioner just seconds before he could behead a local teen who was accused of supporting resistance movements within Mosul. His bullet struck the terror thug just as he was taking aim at the boy’s neck, sources said. The attack prompted the terrorists to frantically open fire and scatter as they attempted to find cover. The recent shootings have already left a “number” of jihadis ...

Telegraph: The Iraqi army has been accused of taking tents from refugees for their own troops, despite pledging to help the hundreds of thousands expected to be made homeless by their operation to liberate Mosul from Isil. When the Telegraph visited a camp in the town of Tinah, near Qayyarah in northern Iraq, this week they were told by local Iraqi police guarding the site that soldiers had come and loaded the tents, as well as eight UN-supplied water tanks, onto their trucks and left. “They were coming from Baghdad, they said they were the rapid response unit,” said one officer who did not wish to be named to protect his identity. “They said they needed them as they didn’t have enough at their base. “I begged them not to take them as the refugees here have nothing, but they ignored me and I couldn’t stop them.” The troops took around 175 of the 200 tents, which were provided by the Iraqi ministry of displacement and migration, and sent them on to the QWest base they share ...

Fox News: It’s been six days since the offensive to retake Mosul began, and the going has been slow as ISIS fighters and snipers, seemingly immune to airstrikes, continue to pop up in towns and villages surrounding Iraq’s second-largest city and already thought “liberated.” REELING ISIS TRICKS BOYS AS YOUNG AS 8 INTO MANNING FRONT LINES As they are pushed slowly back, the reason is becoming clear: An extensive network of tunnels crisscrosses this land and allows the Islamist army’s fighters to move unseen from one location to the next. Fox News was given exclusive access to one of these tunnels hours after it was discovered by Kurdish Pehsmerga fighters. IRAQI FORCES LAUNCH NEW ATTACK NORTHEAST OF MOSUL Inside was a warren of different tunnels and shafts, each leading to different houses in the village. Two entrances followed carved staircases up into buildings – another rose to a secret hole in a back alley, and yet another, where the whole project had begun – at the bottom of a 25-...

Sky News: Iraqi and Kurdish forces have seized a number of villages around Mosul - but their advance has been slowed by suicide bombers, roadside IEDs and oil fires. The Peshmerga gained 80 square miles of territory from Islamic State during the first day of the huge military operation, according to the president of Iraq's Kurdish region. Lt Col Mohammad Darwish of the Peshmerga said the main roads and fields were littered with homemade bombs. Sky's Stuart Ramsay, who is embedded with the Kurdish fighters, said they were searching through outlying villages for IS fighters. "They are literally going street-by-street trying to clear out any of the Islamic State if they are in here. "They are not sure who is here - but they are being fired back at." He also witnessed a coalition airstrike destroy a suspected suicide bomber in a truck who had been approaching the Kurdish forces. An IS-run media outlet said the group had launched a series of suicide at...