Iraq military claims to control a ‘third’ of east Mosul

An Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesperson has claimed that Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) now control one third of the eastern half of the city of Mosul, as the ISF sustains further casualties in the same areas it claims to have pushed Daesh out of.

At a press conference yesterday at the Qayyarah airbase south of Mosul, Brigadier-General Sa’ad Ma’an said: “More than one third of [the eastern] side has been liberated.”

Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, is divided into western and eastern halves by the Tigris River, with the eastern half occupying more area overall. The Iraqi authorities’ announcement would therefore suggest that the ISF controls more than a sixth of the total area of Mosul.

This, however, conflicts with the fact that Iraqi forces have been unable to make substantive gains in the city, and the advance has stalled significantly due to fierce resistance by Daesh.

Confusing accounts of casualties

Ma’an also claimed that ISF units had killed 955 Daesh militants and had captured 108 on the southern front alone.

In conjunction with the US-led international coalition’s estimates of approximately 900 Daesh fighters killed a mere ten days into the operation that began on 17 October, this represents a very high figure indeed.

At the start of the campaign to recapture Mosul, the United States declared that some 5,000 to 6,000 Daesh fighters were present in and around the city, held by the extremist organisation since June 2014.

If the Iraqi authorities’ figures, in addition to the coalition, are to be believed, that means that Daesh forces have suffered force attrition of a third or more of the total forces present in Mosul. In military terms, these losses are unacceptably high for a force in the field hoping to hold onto a city.

The reality of combat on the ground and the ponderous advance of the ISF would seem to suggest that Daesh’s losses are far less than those communicated by the authorities.

Meanwhile, and according to infographics released by Daesh’s Amaq news agency, the militant organisation has killed more than 2,400 Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in the first month since operations began.

MEMO cannot independently confirm these figures, and the Iraqi government has not released any information regarding their own losses as a comparison with Daesh’s claimed casualty numbers.

Iraqi forces, Daesh clash around Mosul

 ISF sources have also confirmed that at least 30 Iraqi troops were killed in eastern Mosul, while a further two soldiers were shot dead by a Daesh sniper in the contested Qadissiya neighbourhood, Al Jazeera reported.

Fighting also continued around the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, that was declared “liberated” by Iraqi officials earlier this week. Daesh claimed to have killed 25 ISF soldiers in the area, while the Iraqi military claimed to have killed 21 Daesh militants.

Mosul’s western, northern and most of the southern neighbourhoods have not seen any combat, with the main thrust of ISF efforts being focused on eastern districts while other Iraqi units advance from the three other axes.