A displaced Iraqi child at Hasan Sham refugee camp some 30km east of Mosul.
Baghdad: Islamic State fighters have stepped up counterattacks on Iraqi forces in Mosul amid bad weather as the US-backed offensive to capture their last major city stronghold in Iraq enters its third month.
With cloudy skies hampering coalition air surveillance, the militants carried out attacks in three districts of eastern Mosul, Al Quds, Ta’mim and Al Nur, over the past four days, residents and security officials said yesterday. “We heard clashes and explosions and then somebody shouting on the loudspeaker of the mosque ‘Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, the Islamic State is staying’,” said a Ta’mim resident.
The humanitarian situation of the besieged population is causing alarm amid reports of food, water and fuel shortages, while the fighting is making access to hospitals difficult.
Nearly 100,000 people have fled the city, according to the International Organisation for Migration. More than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers, Kurdish fighters and Iranian-backed Shi’ite volunteers are taking part in the offensive. The latter are attacking the militants supply lines in a remote and semi-desert area west of Mosul to avoid fanning sectarian tensions with the city’s Sunni population. The Iraqi military estimate the number of militants in the city at 5,000 to 6,000. They are dug in amid the city’s remaining population of about one million, moving through tunnels and using suicide car bombs, sharpshooters and mortar fire to slow the advance of the Iraqi forces.
