Inertia reigns in the process of the right Mosul coast despite the liberation of 60% of its area



2017/03/31 (21:01 PM) - Number of readings: 172 - Number (3890)


Baghdad

The wave of criticism that followed the fall of civilians in the old city of Mosul has slowed operations, despite the fact that joint forces control about 60 percent of the right coast.
The liberation of western Mosul took its sixth week, and the area controlled by an organization in the right-hand side of the city fell to about 40 percent.

But city officials say the joint forces have been in place for two weeks without real achievements. They find that what has been achieved in the recent period, which preceded the fall of civilians, was very limited.

After the massacre of civilians

There were conflicting statistics about the number of civilians killed in the recent bombing, whose circumstances have not yet been confirmed.
The figures range from 200 to 500 killed in the attack on a 70-meter-long street in the old city that houses 30 houses.

In the meantime, the Pentagon announced that it would soon publish a video showing gunmen from an organization calling civilians to a building in the new neighborhood of Mosul, and then shoot at the Iraqi forces supported by the International Alliance. Colonel Joseph Skruka, an international coalition spokesman, said on Tuesday he was seeking to remove the "secrecy" from a video showing armed militants entering civilians in a building in western Mosul "as bait that lures the coalition to attack."

"What is happening now is not the use of civilians as human shields ... for the first time we discover this through a videotape, forcing armed civilians to enter a building, killing one who showed resistance and then using that building as a battleground against the anti-terrorist unit."

The Pentagon said on Wednesday it had retracted more than 700 video of coalition raids on western Mosul in Iraq.

A spokesman for the Central Command, Colonel JT. Thomas said that command gives a high priority to investigating Mosul reports.

Nineveh governor Nawfal Hammadi spoke of "more than 130 civilians" who were killed in several days of air strikes targeting al-Jadida area.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Thursday that he was "targeting the civilian population and taking them as human shields while at the same time intensifying its propaganda campaign to spread rumors."

"We are in the final stage of the liberation of Mosul and our forces are doing their utmost to protect civilians," he said.

Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri called on the media to "be careful about any incident". "There will be no immunity for anyone who intentionally causes the loss of Iraqi lives," he said.

Amnesty International criticized the US-led coalition and accused him of failing to take adequate precautions to protect civilians.

Operations decline
"The number of dead on the right side of Mosul is more than those who fell in a battle east of Mosul," said Ahmad al-Jubouri, the Nineveh representative in the lower house of parliament.

"The bodies that were recovered from a house in the new Mosul reached 126 bodies," Jubouri said in a statement. "A truck bomb exploded in the same place and killed about 100 people."
"The bombing that took place in that area was caused by a US raid on March 13," the MP said.
Both the defense and interior ministers ordered an investigation into the cause of the recent Mosul incident.

"Most of the victims were killed by the rubble and delayed by the removal of the buildings that fell over them," Jubouri said. He criticized the lack of rescue and engineering teams accompanying the military units.

The Iraqi army recently announced the removal of 61 bodies from the rubble of the building, which he said that the organization is urging his brother in the new district of Mosul, which was liberated before days.

Since then, military operations have declined significantly in Mosul, as the fighting stopped for several days, despite the denial of military leadership for it. Information is leaked about the preparation of a new military plan, in which air raids or mortars will be abandoned.
However, al-Jubouri denies the air strikes.

"Ten days ago, the military operations have slowed down," said Daoud Soldi, a member of the Security Committee of the Nineveh Council.

A soldier, in contact with the (range) yesterday, that "the period taken by the military units were sufficient to liberate the right coast, but something happened to disrupt this."
"The talk of the air strike in central Mosul, which caused the decline of the joint forces," he said. "Fifteen days ago, Iraqi factions surrounded the al-Nuri Mosque in the old Mosul without clear progress."

"Iraqi forces now control 60 percent of the area of ​​the right coast," Jabouri said. But he stressed that the battle is not easy, pointing out that "the area of ​​the mosque Nuri need to a special process of narrow alleys and population density."



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