Oil Wells South of Mosul Burn Days After Key Town Retaken
The skies above this small northern Iraqi town are black with smoke and ash rains down from around a half dozen oil wells that Islamic State group fighters set ablaze as Iraqi troops moved in to retake Qayara last week. Unlike previous ground assaults against IS in Iraq that left entire cities and villages emptied […]The skies above this small northern Iraqi town are black with smoke and ash rains down from around a half dozen oil wells that Islamic State group fighters set ablaze as Iraqi troops moved in to retake Qayara last week.
Unlike previous ground assaults against IS in Iraq that left entire cities and villages emptied of civilians, thousands of civilians remained in Qayara as militants inside quickly folded up and fled, a sign of their weakening morale and damaged supply lines, commanders say. That means residents did not join the ranks of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by recent fighting with IS and now languishing in camps around the country.
But the situation for the some 9,000 civilians still in Qaraya is precarious. The battle left the town without electricity and little running water, and the large international aid groups who normally help the displaced say they cannot deliver aid to people so close to frontline fighting.
