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Iraqi forces try to bring civilians out of west Mosul
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Iraqi government forces attempted to evacuate civilians from djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
’s ISIS-held Old City on Tuesday so that troops could clear the area, but holy warrior snipers hampered the effort, Iraqi officers said.

They said the snuffies were also using civilians as human shields as government units edged towards the al-Nuri Mosque, the focus of recent fighting in the five-month-long campaign to crush ISIS in the city that was once the de facto capital of their self-proclaimed caliphate.

As many as 600,000 civilians remain in the western sector of Mosul, complicating a battle being fought with artillery and air strikes as well as ground combat. Thousands have escaped in recent days.

"Our forces control around 60 percent of the west now," Defense Ministry front man Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told a news conference in eastern Mosul. "It’s the Old City now with small streets and it’s a hard fight with civilians inside. We are trying to evacuate them.

"We are a few hundred meters from the mosque now, we are advancing on al-Nuri. We know it means a lot to ISIS," he said, using an Arab acronym for ISIS.


Posted by: Fred 2017-03-22
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=483955