Chemical attacks and narrow streets complicate fight for Mosul’s Old City
The fight against the Islamic State in western Mosul has reached the level of door-to-door fighting, with many challenges and dangers regarding the safety of civilians and the use of chemical weapons by IS.
MOSUL, Iraq — On April 23, a surprise attack including two suicide attacks by Islamic State (IS) fighters hit a command center for the Iraqi federal police in the south of Mosul. One Iraqi policemen was killed and one was injured.
On arriving at a federal police front line against the IS on April 15, gas masks were being unpacked, plastic wrappings torn off and the masks set atop wooden ammunition boxes for easy access.
After receiving elusive answers about why and seeing the same readying of masks at the nearby, heavily damaged Ninevah hospital, Al-Monitor found out later that day that an area under the control of the Iraqi special forces had been hit by IS mortars containing a chemical agent.
The hospital was taken a few weeks earlier. With its charred beds, abandoned stethoscopes and ubiquitous bullet casings, it is still in the range of IS sniper fire, and the stench of a bloated corpse of an IS fighter splayed out in a narrow alleyway nearby filled the air.
