Mosul Campaign Day Twenty-Seven, Nov 12, 2016

Progress was made again in east Mosul. Arbajiyeh was freed, while there was mopping up operations in Qadisiyah, which was liberated the day before. Kirkukli, Zahra, and Khadra were gone through once again as well. All three were cleared on November 9. Finally, Salam and Bakr were attacked, and Aden surrounded, although the latter was declared liberated on November 4. The Iraqi forces (ISF) have had to go through neighborhoods again and again because the Islamic State has re-infiltrated them, usually through the extensive tunnels they dug underneath the city, or they were never fully emptied of fighters to begin with. IS has also hidden amongst civilians making the situation all the harder to deal with. ISF advances have been limited to columns of vehicles travelling down streets due to the heavy gunfire, and then going house to house making the process of moving through the city all that more difficult and time consuming.

(Mappery)

Buzz Feed reported American Apache helicopters flying over the eastern section of the city providing fire support to the Iraqis. The U.S. is also providing artillery and air strikes.

Iraq Oil Report provided details on what was happening within Mosul. Militants executed 7 civilians, and were also forcing people out of their homes in two neighborhoods to use them as mortar and rockets positions, and to fortify them in the face of the advancing Iraqi units.

In Qayara south of Mosul, which was one of the first places liberated during the operation the North Oil Company was hard at work trying to extinguish fires in at least 18 oil wells that were set afire by the retreating Islamic State. Those blazes have created huge toxic clouds that have driven away civilians and vastly limited visibility in the area.

Finally, the United Nations and International Organization for Migration (IOM) updated the displaced situation. The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported 49,092 people had left their homes by November 12. 3,390 of those had fled north, 16854 had gone south, and 27,816 had headed east. Most of the last figure was from Mosul itself. The IOM noted that approximately 12,800 people had been displaced from just November 8 to November 11. Again, that was largely due to people fleeing the fighting in eastern Mosul where the ISF have penetrated allowing them an avenue out.

SOURCES

Giglio, Mike, “Officers In Mosul Aim To Shield Civilians, Not Bomb Indiscriminately As Trump Vowed,” BuzzFeed, 11/10/16

Iraq Oil Report, “Inside Mosul, Nov. 12, 2016,” 11/12/16

Al Maalomah, "Counter-terrorism control Arbajiyeh, Second Qadisiyah and surround Aden neighborhoods in Mosul," 11/12/16

New Sabah, "A break in the fight against terrorism as Qadisiyah neighborhood in Mosul is completely freed," 11/11/16

Reuters, "Iraqi army says advances in Mosul, despite suicide bombers," 11/12/16

Tawfeeq, Mohammed, Formanek, Ingrid and Narayan, Chandrika, “Civilians shot, bodies hung from poles in Mosul, Iraqi sources say,” CNN, 11/11/16

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “IRAQ: People currently displaced by Mosul military operations (as of 12 November 2016),” 11/12/16

Xinhua, "Iraqi forces clear areas freed from IS in eastern Mosul," 11/9/16

- "Iraqi forces free more districts in eastern Mosul," 11/4/16

- "Iraqi forces push slowly into Mosul to seize more districts," 11/12/16