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The Beatings Will Continue: Iraqi Edition
 Mosul residents' difficulty finding food (Reuters) The United Nations said on Tuesday there were indications that poorer families in Mosul are struggling to feed themselves as food prices increase following the U.S.-backed offensive on the Islamic State-held city in northern Iraq. “Key informants are telling us that poor families are struggling to put sufficient food on their tables,” U.N Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande, told Reuters. “This is very worrying.” Iraqi government and Kurdish forces surround the city from the north, east and south, while Popular Mobilisation forces – a coalition of Iranian-backed Shi’ite groups – are trying to close in from the west. Last week the Popular Mobilisation forces cut off the supply route to Mosul from Islamic State-held territory in Syria. “In a worst case, we envision that families who are already in trouble in Mosul will find themselves in even more acute need.” Grande said. “The longer it takes to liberate Mosul, the harder conditions become for families.” Six weeks after the launch of the offensive, Iraqi forces moving from the east have captured about a quarter of the city, trying to advance to the Tigris river that runs through its center. A U.S.-led coalition is providing air and ground support to the offensive that started on Oct. 17. ISIS kills residents who refuse to cooperate GENEVA, Switzerland: Daesh militants in the Iraqi city of Mosul have killed civilians who refuse to allow rockets and snipers to be sited in their houses or whom they suspect of leaking information or trying to flee, a UN human rights spokeswoman said on Tuesday. “On Nov. 11, ISIL (Daesh) reportedly shot and killed 12 civilians in Bakir neighborhood of eastern Mosul city for allegedly refusing to let it install rockets on the rooftops of their houses,” Ravina Shamdasani told a regular UN briefing. Information received by the UN also showed that militants publicly shot to death 27 civilians in Muhandiseen Park in northern Mosul on Nov. 25, and on Nov. 22 an Islamic State sniper killed a seven-year-old running toward the Iraqi Security Forces in Adan neighborhood in eastern Mosul. ISIS detains shopkeepers who raised prices Plus semi roundup of Mosul offensive news ISIS has arrested dozens of Mosul shop owners accused of raising food prices in the nearly besieged city, to tamp down discontent as a US-backed offensive closes in on the group’s last major stronghold in Iraq, residents said on Monday. The arrests took place on Sunday morning in Bursa, a commercial district in the western part of the city, said a witness who asked not be identified as ISIS punishes with death those caught communicating with the outside world. About 30 shop owners in the area were arrested and taken away blindfolded to unknown destinations, he said. The Sunni hardline group is relentlessly cracking down on people who could help the biggest ground offensive in Iraq since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. Most of the people executed previously in Mosul were former police and army officers, suspected of disloyalty or plotting rebellions against the militants’ rule. The arrest of the shop owners is meant as a warning to retailers to refrain from price hikes that would cause unrest in the city. Some 100,000 Iraqi government troops, Kurdish security forces and mainly Shiite militiamen are participating in the assault on Mosul, with air and ground support from a US-led international military coalition. Six weeks into the campaign, troops have so far entered about a quarter of the city on its eastern outskirts, but are moving slowly to avoid civilian casualties and have yet to enter the half of the city on the west bank of the Tigris River. More than a million people are still believed to live in parts of Mosul under the control of the fighters, who seized the largest city in northern Iraq as part of a lightning advance across a third of the country in 2014. Retail prices rose in Mosul last week after Popular Mobilization, a force of mainly Iranian-backed pro-government Shiite paramilitaries, cut the road linking the Iraqi and Syrian parts of the “caliphate”, Mosul’s main supply route. The Shiite groups are attacking militants deployed between Mosul and Tal Afar, 60 kilometers (40 miles) to the west, trying to complete Mosul’s encirclement, with the army and Kurdish security forces controlling access from the other three sides. Posted by: badanov 2016-11-30 |
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