Mosul: Militants seized Iraq’s second-largest city on Tuesday, officials said, in another blow to the authorities, who appear incapable of stopping rebel advances.
Overnight, hundreds of gunmen launched an assault on Mosul, 350 kilometres north of Baghdad, engaging in combat with troops and police, they said.
Before the entire city fell, they took control of the governor’s headquarters, prisons and television stations.
“The city of Mosul is outside the control of the state and at the mercy of the militants,” an interior ministry official said.
A journalist, himself fleeing the city, said shops were closed, security forces had abandoned vehicles and a police station had been set ablaze. Police and local officials said the militants were using cranes to move blast walls into position and block roads to prevent the army from regaining control.
Several army officers said Iraqi forces were demoralised and no match for the militants from the Sunni Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil), which is also active across the border in Syria.
“Without urgent intervention of more supporting troops Mosul could fall into their hands in a matter of days” said a senior security official from Nineveh operation centre, adding that Isil was only 3 kilometres from the Ghizlani military camp. The fighting has already forced more than 4,800 families from their homes to other parts of the province and beyond, Iraqi deputy Migration and Displacement minister said.
Mosul is the capital of Nineveh province.
In recent days, militants have launched major operations in Nineveh and four other provinces, killing scores of people and highlighting both their long reach and the weakness of Iraq’s security forces.
Mosul is the second city to fall to militants this year, after the government lost control of Fallujah, just a short drive from Baghdad, in early January.
Islamic state plan
Meanwhile, fighting is raging in eastern Syria as Isil pushes a fresh bid to create an “Islamic state” along the border, a monitor said on Tuesday.
Since Isil launched a new offensive in Deir Al Zor province 40 days ago, 634 people, mainly fighters, have been killed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
At the same time, 130,000 people have been forced to leave their homes, with 39 civilians killed from shelling in the fighting.
The Britain-based Observatory said 354 of the dead were members of Al Nusra Front — Syria’s official Al Qaida arm — and allied rebel groups.
And 241 were members of Isil.
The group was once welcomed by some Syrian rebels, but earned the rebellion’s wrath because of its systematic abuses and quest for hegemony.
Even Al Nusra turned against Isil, after its Iraqi chief, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, sought to take over the group.
Fighting by rebel groups and Al Nusra against Isil has killed more than 6,000 people since it began in early January, according to the Observatory.
Syria’s war has killed more than 162,000 people and has displaced nearly half the population.
