Islamic State fighters vowed they would martyr themselves on the battlefield. But as the strategic noose tightens around their neck in Mosul, it would appear the cliche is true even ISIS radicals: Everyone wants to get to heaven, but no one wants to die.
In fact, ISIS fighters seem so desperate to escape the heavy fighting erupting in Mosul, they’re using women and children as human shields to protect them from U.S. airstrikes as they flee, according to Fox News.
Fox reported Friday that outside of Mosul, “the rural roads leading west are choked with traffic – much of which is believed to be ISIS fighters fleeing to the terrorist army’s Syrian stronghold some 275 miles away in Raqqa,” and the fighters are forcing civilian families to join to discourage airstrikes.
Heavy fighting erupted in the eastern neighborhoods of the besieged city Friday as Iraqi special forces launched an assault deeper into the urban areas of the city and swung round to attack Islamic State militants from a second entry point, to the northeast.
Columns of armored vehicles wound through open desert to open the new front, pushing through dirt berms, drawing heavy fire and calling in airstrikes to enter the middle class neighborhoods of Tahrir and Zahara. The area was once named after former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Lt. Col. Muhanad al-Timimi told The Associated Press that three militants in separate explosives-laden vehicles tried to attack the troops but were destroyed, including a bulldozer that was hit by an airstrike from the U.S.-led coalition supporting the offensive. An officer and two soldiers had been wounded, he added.
At least one of those soldiers was wounded seriously in the first hours of the new advance, which came under heavy fire from mortars, automatic weapons, snipers and anti-tank rockets. Commanders at the scene said his injury to the neck could have been the result of small arms fire or shrapnel from a mortar round.
Earlier, at the direct eastern approach to the city’s urban center, militants holed up in a building fired a rocket at an Abrams tank, disabling it and sending its crew fleeing from the smoking vehicle, seemingly unharmed. The advance in that area then stalled.
The day’s fighting has been the most intense urban combat in Mosul since the Iraqi offensive began over two weeks ago to drive ISIS from the city, Iraq’s second-largest.
The early morning push began with artillery and mortar strikes on the Aden, Tahrir, and Quds districts, just west of the special forces’ footholds in the Gogjali and Karama neighborhoods, al-Timimi said. Both sides opened up with small arms and mortar fire after an artillery barrage by the special forces, ahead of their advance.
Later, the regular army’s ninth division, which has been following the special forces along their advance, moved into eastern Mosul’s Intisar neighborhood, said an officer from the unit who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
The Islamic State group is fighting to hold Mosul as Iraqi forces and allied Kurdish troops squeeze in from all directions with U.S.-led coalition support, mostly from airstrikes and reconnaissance.
On Tuesday, Iraqi troops entered the city limits for the first time in more than two years — soldiers had withdrawn from Mosul in the face of ISIS militants’ 2014 blitz that seized large swaths of territory in Iraq and neighboring Syria.
Now the Iraqi forces are gearing up for urban warfare expected to take weeks, if not months, as they work their way neighborhood by neighborhood, going through a warren of dense buildings prone to booby traps and ambushes.
More than 1 million civilians are stuck in the city, complicating the military’s efforts to advance without harming innocents. ISIS militants have driven thousands of them deeper into the city’s built-up areas, presumably for use as human shields.
Mosul is the last major ISIS stronghold in Iraq, and expelling the militant group from it would be a major blow to the survival of its self-declared “caliphate” that stretches into Syria. When ISIS seized Mosul and other territory in 2014, the much larger Iraqi military had been neglected and demoralized by corruption.
Iraqi forces have made uneven progress in closing in on the city since the operation began on Oct. 17. Advances have been slower to the south, with government troops still 20 miles away, although they seized a handful of villages late last week. Kurdish fighters and Iraqi army units are deployed to the north, while government-sanctioned Shiite militias are sweeping in from the west to try to cut off any IS escape route.
Meanwhile in Geneva, recent accounts of ISIS abuses were revealed by the United Nations, which said it has new reports that the Islamic State group has been carrying out mass killings in Mosul. Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the reports to the group’s rights office alleged that IS killed 50 of its own militants on Monday at the Ghazlani military base for alleged “desertion.”
Shamdasani told reporters that her office also has reports indicating that four women were killed and 17 other civilians wounded in airstrikes on Wednesday in Mosul’s Quds neighborhood. She says it was not the first time that her office had received a report of civilian deaths. She also cited reports that ISIS has been holding nearly 400 women captive in the town of Tal Afar, near Mosul.
The Associated Press contributed to this article
The Union army used human shields to thwart Confederates from shelling a Union fort in South Carolina. The Union army put a poorly maintained prison camp full of captured Confederate soldiers in front of its fort to deter Confederate artillery from bombarding the fort.
Did they burn little children crucify them, and rape their mothers in front of them? No evil except those like Hitler, Stalin, Saddam can clone close to Isis. They must be caught, identified and hung after a quick trial.
While it is true these ISIS people,and I use the term loosely,are evil. Using civilians as cover is hardly a new tactic. It appears AOL is not alone in using misleading headlines.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/723942/ISIS-kills-250-children-dough-kneader-burns-men-alive-oven-Syria-Open-Doors-report
And now we’re hearing stories of cannibalism; I don’t think that happened during the Civil War, either.
Why the trial? Just put them in a pit, flood it with gasoline and flame on!!
Instead of hanging them, they need to dip their bullets in pig blood and shoot them, wrap them in a pigskin so they will be doomed to eternal HELL !
They are doomed to hell regardless of how they are killed.
Even better than my retort. Load up C130s with pig blood balloons and drop them. Then we’ll hear some real squealing!!
You sure sound like a liberal troll.
Of course their cowards and only respond to strength and retribution – they need to be wiped from the face of the earth and left as nothing more than a footnote in history before O’bozo the “Big Eared” Clown and Hillary the “Hun” allow anymore of them into the country and they do us what they are doing to the people of Syria.
While the West frets about human shields, it should learn the muslims’ women and kids travel with their soldier husbands. In the confusion and the din of war… The West holds back its’ attacks and bombs because they call the families traveling with the ISIS resurgents, “civilians”. The wives and families know they are safe walking in front of their husbands. The answer is to declare the circumstances as war and bomb them like the USA bombed Dresden, Germany in WW2. The Americans turned the city into dust. America had no mercy on the German children, their mother and their grandfathers> Get a grip, bomb ’em or get outta’ the way and bring ’em all here according to Hillary’s plan for her peace loving people.
ISIS is a brutal terrorist organization. As we approach election day let’s remember President Obama labeled these demons as the JV team. Maybe its time to replace the Obama/Clinton administration with a totally new team. I am looking forward to seeing President Trump shut ISIS down and bring in a competent staff to get our nation’s foreign policy on track. In order for that to happen everyone has to go to the polls and vote for Mr. Trump. If you sit this election out you are in effect putting Hillary rotten Clinton into the presidency.
It’s time for a change. It’s Trump time.
Justin – you are spot on another would be for the O’bozo’s and Clinton’s to open up their homes to the refugee’s, but not until they give up their security details.
They have been hiding behind women and children all along. Hiding in schools and hospitals. These are cowards. If you look at the refugees Obama and Clinton are so eager to bring here look at the photos closely. They put some children up front to gain sympathy, but most of the refugees are military aged men. When you look even closer at the photos the women are carrying everything, belongings, food, children and these women have no shoes. The men (if you can call them that with a straight face) are strolling along empty handed and all wearing shoes.
Women and children are livestock to Muslims, sometimes with the exception of a favorite son.
To Muslims, they are using livestock as shields.
Is it not how they prefer them?
They will be doomed to hell regardless of how the are killed.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/723942/ISIS-kills-250-children-dough-kneader-burns-men-alive-oven-Syria-Open-Doors-report
A vote for Hillary is a vote for islam to further destroy the West.
Grown up men who use children as human shields.. typical cowards. this is where snipers come into play to get rid of this demonic menace! Disgusted with our so called Presidents plan..do nothing for over 2 years! He owns it! Campaigning and golf. priceless Obama, priceless. looks like the bid on mosul failed to pull off a nice strategy for hillary’s party..all for politics..self serving degenerate politicians. Maybe emails are at fault and not russia.
I’m sure our President will find someone to blame!