
MOSUL – AFP
On the front line in northwestern Mosul, black smoke from the sky is covered by neighborhoods still under the control of a hasty organization and output, a federal police officer says of fires being waged by jihadists in car tires and oil drums.
In the last stronghold in Mosul, members of the organization are using fire, booby-trapped cars, suicide bombers, mines and mortars to limit the advance of Iraqi forces that have managed to control the eastern part of Mosul for the last few months.
“When the weather is clear, Iraqi aircraft and coalition aircraft can clearly see the movements and concentrations of terrorists and target them accurately,” the officer said, declining to be identified as he tried to urge him to burn tires and barrels of oil whose black smoke limits the ability of these planes to see “He said.
The fighting on this front at the edge of the five pyramidal district shares the federal police forces and rapid response in the face of a hasty organization.
The causes of black smoke are not limited to the burning of tires and fuel. Attacks carried out by suicide bombers with explosives and car bombs also leave black smoke behind.
At a rallying point at the bottom of a hill, AFP reporters saw a red flame suddenly emitted from behind the hill, followed by a huge explosion. “It was a car bomb that the suicide bomber was trying to reach at a rally point for the rapid reaction forces, but a helicopter of the Iraqi forces was intercepting it and hitting it with a missile before reaching its goal by about one kilometer,” said Brigadier General Aref al-Dulaimi, “He said.
“Our driver entered the courtyard of a house where women and children were hiding. They were protected by human shields,” Dulaimi told AFP. “We could not bomb them because it would have killed innocent people. But we kept them under surveillance.”
“Every day five to six attacks are carried out by suicide bombers driving car bombs,” he said.
Some Humvee mechanisms are assembled at the bottom of the hill. “As in the past, they use families and civilians as human shields to stop the advance of our troops towards them,” said officer Diab.
Iraqi forces, supported by the Washington-led international coalition on Oct. 17, began a massive operation to restore Mosul from the Dahesh organization, which seized control in mid-June 2014.