Up to 900 ISIL fighters killed in Mosul battle, US says

There are between 3,500 and 5,000 ISIL fighters in the Iraqi city and up to another 2,000 in the broader area, according to US estimates.

An Iraqi special forces soldier looks down the entrance of a tunnel used by ISIL fighters inside a restaurant in Bazwaya, east of Mosul, on October 27, 2016. Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

ERBIL // Up to 900 ISIL fighters have been killed in the offensive to retake Mosul, the United States said on Thursday, as camps around the city filled with fleeing civilians.

Iraqis who fled their homes expressed joy at escaping ISIL’s brutal rule as they were given shelter and assistance, in some cases reuniting with relatives they had not seen in more than two years.

With air and ground support from the US-led anti-ISIL coalition, Iraqi government forces allied with Kurdish peshmerga fighters have taken a string of towns and villages from the extremists in a cautious but steady advance.

General Joseph Votel, who heads the US military’s Central Command, said the offensive was inflicting a heavy toll on the extremists.

“Just in the operations over the last week and a half associated with Mosul, we estimate they’ve probably killed about 800-900 Islamic State fighters,” Gen Votel said.

There are between 3,500 and 5,000 ISIL fighters in Mosul and up to another 2,000 in the broader area, according to US estimates.

The offensive has so far been concentrated in towns and villages around Mosul, with Iraqi forces later expected to breach city limits and engage the militants in street-to-street fighting.

Aid workers have warned of a major humanitarian crisis when fighting begins in earnest for Mosul, which is home to more than a million people, but thousands have already been fleeing surrounding areas.

Iraq’s ministry of displacement and migration said on Thursday that more than 11,700 people had been displaced since the operation began.

“There’s been quite a dramatic upturn in the last few days. As the Iraqi troops get closer to Mosul, more people are getting displaced, there are more populated areas,” said Karl Schembri, regional media adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council.

At a camp in Khazir, about midway between Mosul and Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, Massud Ismail Hassan peered through a chain-link fence, looking for family members as peshmerga fighters registered the displaced.

Other families had already found each other, and tearful relatives clutched hands through the links of the fence.

Saddam Dahham, who lived under ISIL control in a village near Mosul for more than two years, fled to Khazir with his wife and their three children.

“We were not allowed to smoke, to use phones, not allowed to watch TV and we had to let our beards grow long,” the 36-year-old said.

One of the first things he did after arriving at the camp was joyfully shave the “heavy thing dangling from my chin”.

“I’m finally going to resume a normal life,” the former lorry driver said.

* Agence France-Presse