Mosul, Iraq: Civilians killed by Landmines as they flee
This appears to be the future of places like Mosul where for the next 50 to 100 years children and uneducated people will be blowing up from thousands of landmines and other booby traps laid for soldiers attacking Mosul. This is just normal for anyplace mined like Mosul has been.
4 hours ago ... IRBIL, Iraq (CNN) - More than 50 civilians have been killed and injured by landmines since Friday night as they fled a village about 9 miles west ...
WCYBMosul battle: Civilians killed by landmines as they flee, police sayWCYBIRBIL, Iraq (CNN) - More than 50 civilians have been killed and injured by ...
3 hours ago ...Mosul battle: Civilians killed by landmines as they flee, police say - Gant ... area in city's westYahoo News(CNN) Iraqi forces are approaching a ...
Mosul battle: Civilians killed by landmines as they flee, police say
Officials: This could be 'most dangerous phase'
By
KAREEM KHADDER
,
INGRID FORMANEK AND LAURA SMITH-SPARK
,
CNN
CNN
IRBIL, Iraq (CNN) - More than 50 civilians have
been killed or injured by landmines since Friday night as they fled a
village about 9 miles west of Mosul, Iraq's Federal Police said in a
tweet Saturday.
Residents in the village of Sahaji were trying to escape the fighting as Iraqi forces advance on western Mosul.
ISIS is in control of hills between Sahaji and Mosul, Iraq's second city.
Iraqi
Federal Police units have gained more ground as they lead the charge to
force ISIS from western Mosul, Lt. Gen. Raid Shakir Jaudat said
Saturday.
Police including rapid response forces have liberated
the Hawi al-Jawsaq area, an open agricultural expanse, and are now
advancing into al-Jawsaq neighborhood, which sits next to the Tigris
River.
East and west Mosul are divided by the Tigris, and US-led
coalition airstrikes have damaged all five bridges connecting the two
sides in an effort to contain the militants in the west.
Federal
Police elite units are also clearing the remaining pockets of resistance
in western Mosul's al-Tayaran neighborhood, just north of the Mosul
International Airport runway. Iraqi forces seized control of the airport
overnight Thursday.
Resistance from ISIS fighters continues.
Residents in Mosul's southwestern al-Jawsaq and Dawasa neighborhoods
told CNN late Friday night that ISIS militants were setting fire to
shops there as they battled Iraqi forces.
Eyewitnesses also
described ISIS fighters seizing civilian vehicles, a pattern the terror
group has used in the battle for Mosul. The fighters took smaller
vehicles to block roads against advancing Iraqi forces, while using
larger SUV-type ones for themselves, residents said.
Reporter killed
Private
Kurdish TV channel Rudaw said one of its top reporters, Shifa Gardi,
was killed Saturday afternoon in a bomb attack while covering clashes in
Mosul. Her cameraman, Younis Mustafa, was also injured, the channel
said in a statement.
Bayan Sami Rahman, the Kurdish government's
representative to the United States and a former journalist, tweeted
that Kurdistan "has lost a courageous and professional journalist who
cracked the glass ceiling."
More than 1,500 Iraqi civilians were
evacuated from the newly liberated al-Mamoun neighborhood in
southwestern Mosul after ISIS had been "holding them as human shields,"
said Jasem Mohammad al-Jaff, Iraq's minister of migration and
displacement.
They were taken to a refugee camp and to al-Qayyara airfield south of Mosul, he said.
Lt.
Gen. Abdul Amir Rasheed Yarallah, commander of Iraqi forces in Nineveh
province, said counterterrorism forces continued to clear al-Mamoun and
were storming the Wadi Hajjar neighborhood.
Iraqi forces launched
their bid to retake the western parts of the city on Sunday after
declaring the east had been liberated last month.
Mohammed Al
Mawsily, manager of a radio station that broadcasts exclusively to Mosul
from Irbil, told CNN that listeners who'd called in from the embattled
city since the offensive began had expressed some cautious optimism.
However,
it had become harder for them to call Alghad FM because of the
worsening conditions, he said. A lack of power is making it difficult to
charge cell phones, with many people relying on generators for
electricity at the same time fuel prices are rising.
Mosul residents also complain that food is in short supply and what little can be found is prohibitively expensive, he said.
On
Saturday, Iraqi armored units took control of the electric power
station in the nearby village of al-Yarmouk, according to a statement
from Yarallah, the Iraqi commander in Nineveh. The power station
provides electricity to Mosul.
'Most dangerous phase'
The
International Rescue Committee warned Friday that this second stage of
the Mosul operation could be the "most dangerous phase" for civilians as
Iraqi troops seek to secure densely populated areas amid ISIS
resistance.
"This will be a terrifying moment for the 750,000
people still in the west of the city, and there is a real danger that
the battle will be raging around them for weeks and possibly months to
come," said Jason Kajer, the Iraq acting country director for the
humanitarian group.
"Everything must be done to keep civilians
out of the firing line, and as Iraqi forces reach individual
neighborhoods, people must be given the opportunity to escape the city
safely."
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Friday promised that Iraqi forces would do all they could to keep civilians safe.
"We
will exert the utmost effort to rescue the civilians and protect them,
provide safe corridors for their exit, receive and (transfer) them to
the safe camps," he said in a statement from his media office.
He
also congratulated the armed forces on their victories against "defeated
Daesh terrorist gangs," using an Arabic name for ISIS.
Police: Bombs, weapons seized
The
Iraqi Joint Operations Command said Friday that Mosul International
Airport and the nearby Ghazlani military camp on the outskirts of
southwestern Mosul had been fully liberated.
More than 50 ISIS militants were killed and scores wounded in Friday's operation, Jaudat said.
Iraqi
forces also destroyed 25 improvised explosive devices and seized
several weapons as they liberated the first residential neighborhood in
western Mosul, he said.
Meanwhile, Iraq's Shiite-led Popular
Mobilization Units liberated two villages west of Tal Afar, a town to
the west of Mosul. The militia evacuated 1,200 civilians from the
villages, the PMU's directorate said Saturday.
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