Iraqi militants and government troops targeted an ISIS meeting in a town outside Mosul, killing and injuring dozens, according to the Popular Mobilization Unit’s (PMU) media unit.
PMU artillery targeted the meeting, which was being held near a police station in Tal Afar, a largely Turkmen town around 70 km (43 miles) west of Mosul, the northern Iraqi town which has been the focus of a huge Iraqi military operation in recent weeks and months.
The PMU is an umbrella group of militant groups that is working with government forces to liberate ISIS-held areas of the northwestern Iraqi governorate of Nineveh, including its capital, Mosul.
Two artillery strikes, planned in conjunction with an Iraqi army brigade, killed and injured more than 70 gathered ISIS fighters, the PMU media office said.
Government forces retook the eastern part of Mosul from ISIS a month ago, completing a key phase in an offensive on the city, Iraq’s second-largest and ISIS’ last stronghold in the country, that began on October.
Humanitarian concerns
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that since operations to liberate the western part of the city, which began February 19, around 8,000 people have fled from the occupied areas of the city and surrounding villages. The agency reports that emergency kits of food and water have been distributed to those fleeing ISIS-held areas.
For those who remain trapped in the war zone, OCHA says that civilians in “many neighborhoods” in southern and western Mosul have no access to drinking water.
The report adds that as many as 75 civilians have been treated as trauma casualties since the renewed campaign began.
Minister: IDPs number in millions
Meanwhile, Iraq’s Minister of Migration and Displaced Jassem Mohammad al-Jaff said during a press conference at the offices of the ministry headquarters in Baghdad that the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) have reached 4.3 million across the country since ISIS began taking territory in 2014, but that more than 1.6 million have returned to their homes in areas liberated from ISIS.
Al-Jaff added that since operations began, the government had processed 14,000 IDPs, which have been transferred to Al-Qayyara and al-Qayyara airfield and the village of al-Hajj Ali to the to the south of Mosul, and added that his department is taking care of their needs.
The government figures eclipse the OCHA records as they take into account a wider timeframe and may include IDPs which were not registered by the UN agency.
Key bridge retaken
On Monday, the army reported it has recaptured a bridge across the Tigris River in west Mosul, where fierce battles are ongoing to oust ISIS from its last bastion in Iraq.
While all five bridges linking the government-held eastern Mosul to the western part have been destroyed, the takeover of the fourth bridge will allow Iraqi forces to lay a ramp over the broken part and open a supply route from east.
The battle to take over west Mosul, where about 750,000 people are believed to be living, has proved to be challenging. The narrow, densely populated streets there makes the impact of heavy weaponry deadly and indiscriminate, and access to aid difficult.