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Associated Press

With the fight for Mosul in its final stage on Monday, Islamic State militants sent female suicide bombers hidden among fleeing civilians, while Iraqi forces and the US-led coalition unleashed punishing airstrikes and artillery fire that set dozens of buildings ablaze.
At least one Iraqi soldier was killed and five were wounded in the two separate suicide attacks, the military said. On Sunday, a bomber in women’s clothing killed 14 people at a camp for displaced residents in Anbar province, a provincial official said. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.
“These tactics don’t surprise me,” said Sgt Ahmed Fadil, who patrolled Mosul’s Old City just 50 metres (yards) from the front.
The militants “have nowhere to go. They’re trapped,” he said.

Monday’s two suicide bombings against Iraqi soldiers followed three other such attacks by women — some of them teenagers — in the previous two days, said Sgt Ali Abdullah Hussein.
A soldier displayed the school ID card retrieved from the body of one of the bombers, showing her to be only 15. The photo was of a serious young woman in a white hijab and indicated she had studied in Bangladesh.
“Most of the people who blew themselves up today are women,” said special forces Lt Col Salam Hussein. He added that seven women strapped with explosives approached the troops on Monday, “but thank God, our units stopped (them).”
Hundreds flee as battle for Mosul enters final stage, but humanitarian situation remains ‘critical’
Government troops advancing through the Old City were using rougher tactics to clear the remaining pockets of IS forces.
The tempo of airstrikes was so great Monday that coalition aircraft couldn’t keep up with the requests for air support from Iraqi ground forces. Instead, they sought approval for artillery strikes.
While shops have reopened and civilian traffic fills streets in retaken neighbourhoods, thick black smoke continued to rise just a few kilometres away from IS-held territory on the bank of the Tigris River that divides Iraq’s second-largest city. The area controlled by the militants is less than a square kilometre (less than half a square mile).

Islamic State militants swiftly overran Mosul in 2014. The US-backed offensive to retake the city was launched in October and has proceeded slowly, even though Iraqi political and military officials had vowed to declare victory by the end of 2016.
Iraqi forces began their push to retake the Old City in mid-June.
Even though the militants are squeezed into smaller and smaller territory, the danger remains for units like Fadil’s.
Iraqi forces capture historic Mosul mosque where Islamic State declared ‘caliphate’
When they heard cries from civilians just around the corner, he and his colleagues rushed their commanding officer to safety into a nearby home that already had been cleared. They yelled at the group of sobbing women and children to hurry past.
Fadil explained the reason for their caution.
“They cry and then — boom! They explode themselves,” he said. “The closer we get to victory, the more suicide bombers they will send.”
At one screening point, soldiers anxiously held civilians back at gunpoint, shouting at men and boys to strip to their underwear.
Hussein, of the special forces, and a group of about a dozen men searched on foot Monday for more suicide bombers. An informant pointed out a house occupied by IS fighters.

A solider kicked in a door, shouted a warning and threw two grenades into the front room. A second solider stuffed a rag into a plastic jug of gasoline, lit it and threw it inside.
“There are some suicide bombers who refuse to leave the houses, so we’re forced to deal with them with smoke and fire and hand grenades,” Hussein said, noting that the troops burned only the basement, not the house.
His men seized five suspected IS fighters, binding their hands with electrical wire and blindfolding them with scraps of cloth. At least one of the five was arrested.
For most of the soldiers in Mosul, the final days of the gruelling battle caps more than three years of fighting the militants.
Hassan Ahmed, a solider with the special forces deployed in the Old City, said he can’t deny that the war has changed him.
“It’s like I’m heartless — I don’t feel anything,” he said. “But we are still good people. We have mercy.”


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Islamic militancy

Jihadists fight back in battle for Mosul by using women suicide bombers

An Iraqi member of the Counter-Terrorism Services (CTS) wearing a superman T-shirt walks in the Old City of Mosul on July 3, 2017 during an ongoing offensive to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) fighters. The IS is using female suicide bombers as the battle enters its final stages. Photo: AFP

Iraqi forces members carry an injured woman on a stretcher as they evacuate civilians in the Old City of Mosul on July 3, 2017 during an ongoing offensive to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Iraqi forces have been closing in on the Old City in west Mosul for months, but the terrain combined with a large civilian population has made for an extremely difficult fight. / AFP PHOTO / Fadel SENNA

Iraqi women and children flee the Old City of Mosul on July 3, 2017, during the government forces' ongoing offensive to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Iraqi forces have been closing in on the Old City in west Mosul for months, but the terrain combined with a large civilian population has made for an extremely difficult fight. / AFP PHOTO

Smoke billows as an Iraqi woman and children flee the Old City of Mosul on July 3, 2017, during the government forces' ongoing offensive to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Iraqi forces have been closing in on the Old City in west Mosul for months, but the terrain combined with a large civilian population has made for an extremely difficult fight. / AFP PHOTO

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