Just after midnight in Baghdad, we’re going to close our rolling coverage of the first day of the battle for Mosul, the largest military operation in Iraq since 2011, with a summary of the last 24 hours’ events.
The first day of a long awaited mission to retake Mosul from the Islamic State (Isis) ended with Iraqi forces “ahead of schedule”, according to the Pentagon. “By midday they had achieved roughly what they had intended to do,” spokesman Peter Cook said. “It’s day one, it’s early, but this had kicked off certainly the way the Iraqis had hoped.”
Starting at about 6am Baghdad time, about 30,000 coalition forces advanced on Mosul:Iraqi troops from the south, Kurdish peshmerga from the east and US air strikes and ground special forces supporting both. Some 6,000 jihadi militants, some who set oil and tire fires to hide their positions in smoke, are believed to be in the city.
By 10pm local time, Kurdish president Massoud Barzani said the peshmerga had taken approximately 80 miles (200km) of territory from Isis, and commanders said they had cleared nine villages.
Isis militants laid IEDs throughout the towns and sent a series of suicide attacks on Kurdish and Iraqi forces, slowing the march. Near Mosul, the Guardian’s Martin Chulov saw a fighter jet “engaged in a kind of cat and mouse game with a very active Isis mortar team”, and throughout the day Isis fought Iraqi and Kurdish forces with small arms and artillery.
The Pentagon said about 5,000 American military personnel are in Iraq, and that special forces are advising Iraqi and Kurdish units and guiding strikes, some near the outskirts of the city. “We are crystal clear that Americans are in harm’s way in Iraq, but they are not in a lead role,” Cook said.
One resident told the Guardian that Isis militants are trying to hide among civilians, storing IEDs in family homes, and are riding through the city on motorcycles to evade airstrikes. “People have had enough in Mosul,” he said. “We have seen too many beheadings, people being drowned in cafes, thrown from buildings.”
About a million civilians are believed to remain in Mosul, and hundreds of thousands of children are thought to be in danger. The United Nations and aid groups fear a humanitarian crisis of as many as 700,000 people. The groups have set up refugee camps, able to hold about 60,000 people, in nearby Kurdish-held territory.
Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi addressed the nation early Monday, telling residents in Mosul: “These forces that are liberating you today, they have one goal in Mosul, which is to get rid of Daesh and to secure your dignity. They are there for your sake.”
The coalition against Isis intends to drop seven million leaflets in 48 hours over the city, which Cook said would either warn civilians how to flee or have “some specific guidance as to the safest place to be in your homes, if there’s air strikes or artillery or if the fight comes to be in your neighborhood.”
A Kurdish television network, Kurdistan24, recorded footage – earlier today of the moment a vehicle-based IED exploded in an attack on coalition forces.
The film was taken at some distance, but the ensuing explosion is massive enough to veil nearby vehicles in clouds of dust and sand.
Near the front lives of Mosul with the men and women of the Kurdish peshmerga, my colleague Martin Chulov reports from the front lines, 10 miles from Mosul. “I know how much they would hate getting killed by a woman,” Lt Nivan Vechivan, 23, told him.
“It would be my honour to kill them.” Her soldiers, all in their early 20s, nodded in agreement. “We would all be martyrs if we had to be,” added another.
Minutes later, a large mortar thumped into the soil next to an armoured truck less than 40 metres away. Then came a second shell, which nearly scored a direct hit on a still-working digger. The Isis mortar team had maintained its range and rhythm, despite the Kurdish attacks.
Back up the mountain, another smoke fire had been lit in an area that seemed to be behind Kurdish positions. The fire came from a cluster of homes set against Bashika mountain, which the Kurds had bypassed as they pushed ahead. Two more mortars, which had to have come from the same area, crunched into the peshmerga command post, one damaging a home and the other nearly killing a group of men walking just below.
Further along the road to Erbil, a large empty refugee camp stood in the dust waiting to receive inhabitants that are yet to arrive. Aid agencies guess that more than 1 million people will attempt to flee Mosul and its surrounds as the offensive pushes closer. For now though, those who are able to leave are making long, difficult journeys to another camp, Dibaga. There, one man who arrived from Mosul on Sunday said the terror group was becoming ever more ruthless as pressure mounted on its last urban redoubt in Iraq.
A female Syrian Kurdish Peshmerga unit at a forward fighting position. Photograph: Cengiz Yar
“Isis became terrible with the residents lately,” said the man, 28, who claimed to have been part of a nascent resistance unit along with his brother, uncle and father. “Their situation is awful and they have started to flee. We haven’t seen many of them in the street lately, even at the checkpoints. There is no security. We’ve been arrested by them. They said we were (Mosul resistance). They knew we were planning to leave and they came to my house. We decided to run, because they were going to kill us. We all left at night, all the women too. We went to another house and then we left the city through a farm.
“You see them most at night. That’s when they leave their bases to make checkpoints and ask for identification. They’re mostly from Mosul. The foreigners left a while ago. I don’t know where they went. They have made a lot of trenches around the city. That’s all they can do. Burn things and run.”
Mosul resident: Isis trying to hide with civilians
A 35-year-old Mosul resident, using the pseudonym Abu Mohammed, has told Fazel Hawramy, reporting for the Guardian, that Isis forces are trying to mix into the population, and that civilians have seen “too many beheadings, people being drowned in cafes, thrown from buildings”.
Everyone is staying at home because we don’t know what else to do. Daesh [an Arabic acronym for Isis] are mostly moving around on motorbike and have small and heavy guns. The planes started bombing Mosul around one in the morning today, and they are in the sky constantly and occasionally striking targets. I would say the airstrikes are very precise but around 10% of casualties, in my estimate, are civilians.
Daesh are moving into civilian houses and mixing with the population. For example Daesh has placed a large depot of IEDs in a house next to my cousin’s. I begged him to leave his house and bring his family to stay with me, as the house could be targeted by coalition. He refused and said [he accepts] whatever destiny brings.
People have had enough in Mosul. The majority want Daesh to go as soon as possible and would like to see the Iraqi army and peshmerga to enter the city.
We have seen too many beheadings, people being drowned in cafes, thrown from buildings, etc. People have even offered to sacrifice animals if they see Daesh [go[ and get rid of them. I myself saw a man thrown off a building near the governor’s office around three months ago. I could not sleep for a week afterwards.
It’s difficult for civilians to leave the city because a ditch has been dug around many neighborhoods, especially east of the city. There is also fighting – we cannot leave our houses.
Smoke rises from clashes in the east of Mosul. Photograph: Azad Lashkari/Reuters
Kurdish president: Peshmerga take 80 sq-miles from Isis
The head of Iraq’s Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, has said in a statement that Peshmerga forces have retaken 80 sq-miles (200 sq-kilometers) from Isis on the first day of the campaign.
Barzani called the gains a “turning point in the war against terrorism,” but warned defeating Isis in the city would not mean the end of sectarian violence or terrorism in Iraq.
He added that Kurdish forces will not enter the city itself, and declined to say who would govern territory seized by the Peshmerga. In the past, Kurdish officials have said all territory retaken by the peshmerga will be incorporated into the largely autonomous Kurdish region.
The general command of peshmerga forces also released a statement, saying that as of 10pm local time, their troops “had achieved their key objectives: clear nine villages and extend control over the Erbil-Mosul road.”
In less than 24 hours nine villages were cleared in an area measuring approximately 200 square kilometres. The villages include Baskhira, Tarjala, Kharbat Sultan, Karbirli, Bazgirtan, Shaquli, Badana Bchuk, Badana Gawre, Shekh Amir and a tile factory West of Hasan Shami.
Peshmerga forces also secured an additional significant stretch of the Erbil-Mosul road. The operations in east and south Mosul are in coordination with Iraqi Security Forces in a shared effort to clear Isil from Ninevah province.
Global coalition warplanes attacked 17 Isis positions in support of Peshmerga forces. At least four Isis VBIEDs were destroyed. Counter-IED teams will continue to clear the heavily-mined area.
The region’s prime minister, Nechirvan Barzani, also released a statement, calling the campaign “an important event for the entire world since Isis used the city as a launching pad for attacks”. He praised peshmerga troops’ “resilience and heroism against the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world”, and said the Kurds are “proud to protect all different ethnic and religious groups in the region”.
The UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, has said that in a worst case scenario about 700,000 civilians would need shelter – far more than the 60,000 capacity of current emergency cites.
The displacement could become the single largest, most complex humanitarian operation in the world, the AP reports.
“Our capacity to support 700,000 people in the short-term we couldn’t do it. And certainly if we had to mount a response over the intermediate-term, if they couldn’t go back to Mosul quickly, if there was too much damage in the city, then it would test us to breaking point,” Grande said.
The news agency has also spoke with Iraq’s commander of the joint military operation, army lieutenant general Talib Shaghati, who said the campaign “is going very well”.
Shaghati declined to give details in the interview, which took place in the town of Khazer, but said troops were moving according to plan.
He praised the role of the U.S.-led International Coalition as “very important” through carrying out airstrikes and sharing intelligence. Citing intelligence information, he claimed some IS militants were fleeing Mosul to Syria along with their families.
The AFP’s Ammar Karim is also on the ground near Mosul, where he has tweeted figures from the coalition and video of Iraqi forces.
Steady progress on all fronts in first day of #Mosul operation. Coalition strikes destroyed 52 targets in 24 hours.
The first day of a long awaited mission to retake Mosul from the Islamic State (Isis) ended with Iraqi forces “ahead of schedule”, according to the Pentagon. “By midday they had achieved roughly what they had intended to do,” spokesman Peter Cook said. “It’s day one, it’s early, but this had kicked off certainly the way the Iraqis had hoped.”
The Pentagon said about 5,000 American military personnel are in Iraq, and that special forces are both advising Iraqi and Kurdish units and guiding strikes, some near the outskirts of the city. “We are crystal clear that Americans are in harm’s way in Iraq, but they are not in a lead role,” Cook said.
About a million civilians are believed to remain in Mosul, and hundreds of thousands of children are thought to be in danger. The UN and aid groups fear a humanitarian crisis, and have set up refugee camps in nearby Kurdish-held territory.
The coalition against Isis intends to drop seven million leaflets in 48 hours over the city, that Cook said would either warn civilians how to flee or have “some specific guidance as to the safest place to be in your homes, if there’s air strikes or artillery or if the fight comes to be in your neighborhood.”
The Pentagon spokesman elaborates a bit on efforts to alert Mosul residents about the dangers of the mission, noting leaflets, radio broadcasts and a television broadcast earlier today by prime minister Haider al-Abadi.
The instructions are meant to “make [residents] as aware as possible of the dangers they face, and they’re not insignificant, of course,” Cook says.
A reporter asks about the spat between Ankara and Baghdad over the presence of Turkish forces in Iraq to fight Isis.
“Our advice to the Iraqis as to the Turks is to sit down and discuss” their disagreements, Cook says. “Forces operating in Iraq, international forces, need to be there at the consent of the Iraqi government.”
He says it’s at the discretion of al-Abadi’s government to decide whether other groups, such as Shia militias – who with Sunni militias sowed chaos during Iraq’s brutal, post-invasion civil war – will take part in the fight. A Mosul city councilman told the Guardian earlier on Monday that he and his colleagues had urged al-Abadi not to let Shia militias join the fight for fear of sectarian violence.
Cook calls the assessment of Mosul over the last two years as “pretty abysmal” under Isis, and that although the coalition is worried about the humanitarian situation, “the goal first of all is to remove Isil”.
He says the coalition plans to drop 7 million leaflets in Mosul over the next 48 hours to try to educate the residents of the city on how to stay safe or, if possible, escape Mosul.
“Certainly there has been resistance from Isil,” Cook says, alluding to footage of artillery, small arms combat and explosions circulating online. “This is a big fight with multiple locations so fighting may be more intense in some locations than others.”
A reporter asks about the simultaneous campaign in Syria, and Cook says the Pentagon is optimistic: “We think Isil is on the run, both in Syria and Iraq, and that’s a good thing.”
Another asks whether the US intends to send special forces on the ground to assist Turkish troops who have had recent successes in Syria. “You know me better,” Cook replies, “than for me to tell you where US special forces are going anywhere in the world.”
My colleague Julian Borger, who is at the briefing, asks about the leaflets being dropped for the residents of Mosul.
“These leaflets make clear that help is on the way,” Cook says. “There may be some specific guidance as to the safest place to be in your homes if there’s airstrikes or artillery or if the fight comes to be in your neighbourhood.”
He says that in certain parts of the city residents are being warned to stay in their homes, “because they may be safer in that context than trying to flee the city.”
“Most American forces are not anywhere close to the frontline,” Cook says, but he concedes that many remain in danger near Mosul and elsewhere in Iraq.
“We are crystal clear that Americans are in harm’s way in Iraq, but they are not in a lead role.”
The Pentagon spokesman says Isis has had two years to prepare for this campaign by setting traps in and around Mosul, “to plant IEDs to do what they can to make life more difficult for the Iraqi security forces, certainly to make life more difficult for the people of Mosul.”
He calls Isis “an enemy with a substantial ability to make life much more difficult”.
Cook is again asked about Iraqi progress in the campaign. “This is the biggest military operation we’ve had in Iraq by the Iraqi forces,” Cook says. “Plenty of Americans have contributed to getting Iraqi forces into this position.
“By midday they had achieved roughly what they had intended to do. It’s day one, it’s early, but this had kicked off certainly the way the Iraqis had hoped,” he says. “Day one, so far, has gone according to plan.”
He is asked whether there is an indication that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis, might be in Mosul.
“I don’t have any information at this time,” Cook says.
“There are Americans on the outskirts of the city,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook tells reporters, “but I’m not going to get into the disposition of every single American”.
He declines to get into any specifics about the movements or positions of various forces. “I can’t speak to the movement of every single Iraqi brigade or every single American.”
“There was a plan for Americans to provide that advisory role as they have through the course of this,” he says. “It is too soon to say at this point where these movements will go, where these Americans will go in this advisory capacity.
“But what is important is that it will be the Iraqis in the lead.” He says Americans “are behind the forward line of troops, and they are providing the same sort of advice and assistance in Iraq as they were previously”.
Cook is asked about the plan for if and when Isis militants are ousted from Mosul, but declines to get into specifics. “We do have concerns about the humanitarian situation,” and he says simply that the US has been coordinating with Baghdad and the UN.
