Military operations , carried out by the Iraqi security forces and formations of anti-terrorism and rapid deployment, and federal police with a support of the international coalition forces in the city center of Mosul in Nineveh province , will continue in an attempt to enter the old city and residential neighborhoods and commercial markets and their ancient buildings that the federal police forces have sought since several months ago to achieve its field objectives to reach the old mosque al-Nouri noting that it was not able to achieve its goal for many reasons represented by the difficulty of access to these areas due to the density of the population and the nature of the buildings and neighboring residential houses and narrow alleys and lack of field control and addressing of all types of defenses carried out by elements Daesh in terms of psychological and field preparation based on the basis of the development of plans to confront the forces heading to the inside of the city and take all forms of fortifications and find obstacles and put concrete blocks and ambushes and rush of Alangemasin by bomb cars and motorcycle and preparing snipers and fighters and the distribution of them on the roofs of high buildings.
All these measures and defense practices have been the basis of the delay process in the rush of the Iraqi military and security forces to achieve military objectives and control of the neighborhoods of t (al-Shifa and Zanjili) at the beginning of the month of Ramadan until now, and we can identify the most important features of the period, following the preparation of plans and field consultancy by the coalition command, with the following points:
1. The centre of the city of Mosul and the districts of the (Zanjili –al-Shifa) are exposed to daily intensive bombing by the International Air Alliance and Air Iraqi Army and the use of weapons and heavy artillery, mortars and firing Grande missiles at buildings and residential buildings within the old city, which led to the occurrence of serious victims of the local civilian population and wounding many of them.
2. The statement released by Iraqi army aviation commander and his acknowledgement to implement more than (six thousand) sorties over the city of Mosul since the beginning of military operations in which to confirm clearly the nature and size of the losses, which affected the city and its people and the destruction of infrastructure in terms of construction and building .
3. These operations and the implementation of the strategy and field plans are accompanied with a widespread abuse of civilians who are present in the western axis of the Nineveh province in the districts and areas (Hatra-Kairouan-Adnaniyah-Qahtanite-Badush-Hamidat-Baaj) and it is accompanied by the displacement and ethnic cleansing that includes a deportation operations of more than 80 thousand people from the western areas of the province and these numbers have been evacuated from combat zones to other areas since the launch of the western axis operations.
4. The fundamental fact emerged during this month is the lack of Iraqi military and security forces to the advanced field training related to the fighting in cities and encircling the enemy and perform quality operations inside the city and gang warfare, with the exception of the fighters of Anti-terrorism forces who are enjoyed with excelled characteristic of rush to achieve field goals set for them so the directions are issued for them to take part in the the entry to the center of the old city after the completion of the clashes in the villages of (al-Shifa-Zanjili) and complete the cleansing operations and rush inside.
5. The past few months witnessed , particularly in the areas of the right coast, the displacement of many people of the city because of the continuing artillery and aerial bombardment and fighting between Daesh guerrillas and military forces and in overlapping and nearby areas, resulting in a rise in the number of IDPs to (785) thousand people, in addition to the destruction of the city and their scientific, educational, financial and economic facilities and centers and the killing of more than 18 thousand a civilian as a result of these operations with the injury of 37 thousand people and the destruction of 14 thousand housing units.
6. The elements Daesh attacked the civilian population of the people of the city of Mosul, especially in the area of Zanjili when they tried to get out of their houses towards the security forces existed in the neighborhoods (Alrabie- Najjar), where many of them are fallen under the fire of Daesh fighters and led to the death of 300 people in a horrible massacre happened near a soft drink factory, this incident constituted an additional factor to the nature of daily life and the continuing suffering of the children of the city because of the fighting and prolong the siege Daesh on them.
7. fighters of Daesh launched a sudden and rapid attack before 4 days on the positions of security forces in the neighborhood of al-Shifa and was able to achieve some of the goals in restoring some places and headquarters, including specifically the medical complex and to address this failure , the Air Alliance International used the material (WP) to stop the advance and progress of Daesh fighters and this led to thwart the attack and killed many of the attackers, but hit the innocent citizens of the owners of residential buildings causing more than 250 victims as a result of aerial and artillery bombardment and the use of white phosphorus material.
8- The biggest challenge facing the Iraqi military and security forces in Mosul is that a large number of civilians are still present in tight areas teeming with small and open houses on each other and this is an obstacle to the achievement of a major field goals for the field rushed troops.
The question arises could the security and military forces and in all its different forms to put an end to the suffering of the city or increase their plight after the lack of water, electricity, and the scarcity of food and medical supplies and put an end to military confrontations in the area which has become no more than 5 square kilometers, this is what we will see in the coming days.
Iraqi Studies Unit
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies