Mosul: The last days of the shrinking Isis enclave in the Old City
The noose is tightening around the extremist group in Mosul. In the first part of a series from Iraq, residents tell Patrick Cockburn of the brutally repressive measures used against them The voice of Abdulkareem, 43, a former construction worker trapped inside the fast-shrinking Isis enclave in Mosul, trembles with fear as he describes the battle raging around him. He knows that it would be dangerous to try to escape, but it may be even more risky to stay where he is. He told The Independent in a phone interview: “I cannot speak more loudly because they [Isis] will shoot me if they catch me talking on the phone.”
Abdulkareem lives in the Dachat Barga neighbourhood near the al-Maydan district which is being heavily fought over as the Iraqi security forces pin Isis fighters, who may number only 300 combatants, in a small part of the Old City of Mosul with their backs to the Tigris River. “It is a small area, but it is like Stalingrad in that the buildings wrecked by bombs and shells provide good defensive positions,” says one observer, who wished to remain anonymous.
Abdulkareem can hear the sounds of fighting all around him in Dachat Barga, but he dare not go out and see exactly what is happening. “We can hear the roar of the bombing and the mortar fire,” he says. “But we don’t know whether it is the Iraqi army, the coalition airstrikes or Daesh [Isis].” A week ago, his sister and her husband were injured. A mortar shell hit their house, though nobody knew who fired it. He heard later that they were safe in the al-Farouq neighbourhood which had been overrun by Iraqi forces.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/mosul-latest-news-isis-old-city-enclave-north-iraq-forces-coalition-civilians-fighters-militants-a7827331.html