ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The city of Mosul in northern Iraq saw one of the biggest attacks by fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in several years, when the group attacked parts of the city and Iraqi forces Saturday, leading to scores of deaths.
According to Muhammad Ibrahim, head of the security committee of Nineveh province, 41 Iraqi security personnel -- and as many ISIS fighters -- were killed in the attacks.
According to local authorities in Mosul around 3,000 ISIS fighters were involved in the Saturday morning attacks. They approached the city from different directions, controlled major roads and cut off the city from the rest of the country.
In the process, they managed to control parts of Iraq’s second-largest city, such as Musherfa, Tanak, 17 Tammuz, Muairibi and Islah Zirai.
“The situation in Mosul is tense,” Ibrahim told Rudaw. “Many families from areas controlled by the ISIS have fled their homes and headed to safe areas outside the city.”
Nuraddin Qablan, deputy Nineveh governor, said that almost half of the city is under ISIS control.
“The Badu prison is also at risk that holds hundreds of prisoners, some of whom are there on terrorism charges,” he said. “The ISIS is trying to bring that prison under control.”
The mayor of the town of Bartala, Ali Muhammad, said shortly after the attacks that the Iraqi army was unable to protect the area and he called on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to send them Kurdish Peshmarga forces.
Muhammad said that a day before the attacks on his town, an explosion had targeted one of its neighborhoods, in which many civilians were injured. “Even then, there was no sign of Iraqi troops anywhere to protect people,” he said.
Mosul and its surrounding towns and villages are some of Iraq’s most multi-ethnic regions, home to Shiites, Sunnis, Yezidis and Christians.
The Kurdish areas of Nineveh fall within the disputed territories. However, since 2003, Kurdish Peshmarga and special forces have been present, protecting Kurdish, Yezidi and Christian towns and villages.
Mosul proper is outside the KRG jurisdiction, and is under the central government.
Brigadier Halgurd Hikmat, the media officer of the Peshmarga forces, said they had no order from the Kurdish leadership for deployment.
“We are aware that the people of that area are asking for Peshmarga reinforcements, but up to this point the ISIS has not targeted the Kurdish people in that area,” Hikmat said.
Saturday’s violence reminded many Iraqis of similar attacks by al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in 2005, in which the terrorists expelled Iraqi forces and seized full control of the city. Back then, Kurdish forces rushed to the assistance of Iraqi troops and helped regain control of the city.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, Mosul has been considered one of the most violent cities in Iraq, with Iraqi forces having minimal control.
The massive assault on Mosul was part of several similar attacks the ISIS has been launching against Iraqi security forces in Anbar and Samarra this past week.
Simultaneously on Saturday, their fighters attacked the University of Anbar while students were in the middle of final exams, disarmed guards at the compound, and fled with the arms and university vehicles.
Asma Osama, a health official in Anbar, said that no one was hurt in the university attack. However, she said that students had been sent to hide in people’s homes in the neighborhood.
The ISIS is an extremist Islamic group, established in Syria more than two years ago. Many of its members are foreign fighters who have joined the group from other Muslim countries.
The group now has support and members in Iraq’s Sunni provinces of Nineveh and Anbar, where they have exploited people’s grievances against the Shiite government to openly patrol the streets and challenge Iraqi troops and police.
Nineveh Governor Athil al-Nujaifi echoed his colleagues’ concerns, saying that the local police and security forces were incapable of stopping the massive attack on his city.
The attack came just days after the formal handover of a batch of F-16 fighter planes from the United States to Iraq, which Baghdad says will be used to improve the country’s security and “combat terrorism.”
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