Elite Iraqi forces on Sunday wrested back the initiative in the battle for west Mosul, launching a powerful attack after bad weather slowed their momentum in recent days.
As the sun rose in a clear sky, ending three days of overcast skies and heavy rain, a powerful artillery barrage descended on ISIL positions in south-west Mosul.
The rythmic thump of heavy automatic fire and the steady thud of explosions reverberated through the Mansour neighbourhood, where the second brigade of the Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) was readying itself for a ground attack. Helicopter gunships strafed enemy strongholds, and bombs dropped from fighter jets whistled towards their targets.
This lethal orchestra was joined by incessant machine-gun fire when the attack commenced, and the second brigade pushed north along the Baghdad-Mosul motorway to draw level with the already liberated Maamun neighbourhood where ISOF its field headquarters for the day.
By mid-morning, a slowing in the rate of fire indicated that the ISIL militants had been overwhelmed in Mansour, triggering the second phase of the attack. The destructive arsenal of Iraqi and coalition forces was then unleashed on the Tel Rumman neighbourhood to the north of Maamun, and long columns of Humvees of the first and third ISOF brigades crossed a stretch of barren wasteland and plunged into combat.
Radioing in as their trademark black Humvees moved though Tel Rumman, the frontline commanders relayed news of the battle to the headquarters in Maamun, set up in a nondescript house in the run-down outer suburb. Sitting in Humvees parked outside the house, staff officers directed the assault teams, scanning maps on their tablets and shouting orders into hand-held radios.
When the attack was halted in the afternoon, the special forces had pushed deep into enemy terrain. They intend to press their attack in the coming days.
"These areas will be used as a base for our troops to push deeper into the city. It will be sunny for the next six days, and we will use this time to advance further," ISOF Lieutenant General Abdel Ghani Al Asadi told The National.
ISOF spearheaded the assault on Mosul when it was first launched in October last year. In January, the special forces succeeded in taking control of the east bank of the Tigris, which bisects the city. In the push to retake the west bank of the river, which began last month, the elite counterterrorism unit is once again at the forefront of fighting in the west of the city, where the army, federal police and militia groups have also been deployed.
In recent days cloudy skies and rainfall had deprived the Iraqi military of the air support it needs to make progress in west Mosul. ISIL has prepared elaborate defences in the urban sprawl of the suburbs and the densely packed inner districts, where ambushes and suicide car bombers are a deadly threat.
While the Iraqi advance was halted by bad weather, ISIL used the cover of darkness to launch counterattacks. Forcing residents in the frontline districts to leave their homes in the middle of the night, the extremists used the civilians as human shields to assault ISOF positions in Maamun. They also attacked federal police units holding the front near the Tigris river.
With their backs to the wall, the insurgents are putting up a determined fight. West Mosul is ISIL’s final bastion in Iraq, and defeat here will spell the end of the self-proclaimed caliphate that was announced by ISIL leader Abubakr Al Baghdadi in Mosul’s Grand Mosque in 2014.
As ISOF halted their assault on Sunday, they were quickly reminded of their opponents’ fanatical determination. At 5pm, when officers at the Maamun headquarters were already wearing satisfied smiles, ISIL began to pour fire into the neighbourhood. Soon after, two car bombs drove into the Iraqi lines.

Source: The National