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Guards
stand at a checkpoint near burning oil fields in Qayara, south of
Mosul, Iraq, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. For months, residents of the
Iraqi town of Qayara have lived in the darkness from a cloud of
toxic fumes released by oil fields lit by retreating Islamic
State fighters.
AP/Felipe
Dana
IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — Iraqi troops gained a foothold Tuesday in
another neighborhood in the northern city of Mosul after fierce
battles against Islamic State militants dug in behind heavy
fortifications, according to a top Iraqi commander.
A new analysis, meanwhile, has found that there is a high risk
that IS will deploy chemical weapons against Mosul civilians or
Iraqi troops fighting to retake the city. According to IHS
Markit, the extremist group has used chemical weapons at least 52
times in Iraq and Syria since 2014, including 19 times in the
Mosul area alone.
Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil, of the Iraqi special forces, told The
Associated Press that IS fighters were firing rockets and mortars
as his forces «cautiously» advanced in the densely populated
Zohour neighborhood. «There are too many civilians still living
there,» he said.
Iraqi troops began their siege of Zohour on Sunday as they
fortified their positions in neighborhoods already retaken in
eastern Mosul. Suicide bombings, sniper fire and concerns over
the safety of civilians – there are 1 million still in Mosul –
have combined to slow down progress in the campaign to liberate
the city, which began Oct. 17.
Mosul is Iraq’s second-largest city and the largest to have
fallen to the militants. Most gains in the campaign so far have
been made by the special forces operating east of the Tigris
River. Other forces, including the Kurdish peshmerga and
volunteer Sunni militiamen, are advancing on the city from
different directions, and the U.S.-led coalition is providing
airstrikes and other support.
A coalition airstrike on Monday destroyed a major bridge over the
Tigris in the southern part of Mosul, cutting IS supply lines to
the east bank, where most of the fighting is taking place. The
coalition has destroyed three bridges in Mosul, and Iraqi
officers said the two remaining bridges in the city are also
likely to be hit. They spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity
because they were not authorized to brief reporters.
The Iraqi troops are expected to use U.S.-made pontoon bridges
when they need to cross the Tigris later in the campaign.
IS captured Mosul in a matter of days in the summer of 2014, when
it swept across northern and central Iraq. IHS Markit, a
London-based intelligence analysis firm, says the extremists
later used the city as a center for the production of chemical
weapons.
The experts believe IS moved the materials and its chemical
weapons specialists out of Mosul ahead of the Iraqi offensive,
but may still use crude chemical weapons like chlorine and
mustard agents as the troops press deeper into the city.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari meanwhile told
reporters during a visit to Budapest that 1,700 militants have
been killed and 120 captured since the battle for Mosul began. A
third of Ninevah province, where Mosul is the capital, has been
liberated so far, he said, adding that progress in the city has
been slowed by the militants’ use of human shields.
He said that because of Iraq’s «extraordinary situation,» it
would need to increase its crude oil output, which provides 90
percent of state revenues, and be exempt from OPEC quotas.
—
This story has been corrected to show that the Islamic State
group is believed to have used chemical weapons 52 times in Iraq
and Syria since 2014, not 71 times.
Associated Press writers Lori Hinnant in Paris and Pablo
Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary, contributed to this report.
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