Patrolling western Mosul a weary grind for Iraqi police
On the western side of Mosul, much of the fighting against Islamic State militants takes place between houses so close that they almost touch. Snipers fire from roofs and through holes blasted into outer walls. Seen through these holes, this part of Iraq’s second-largest city is a landscape of half-collapsed buildings, burned-out cars and rubbish-strewn […]Mstyslav Chernov and Felipe Dana write for AP:
On the western side of Mosul, much of the fighting against Islamic State militants takes place between houses so close that they almost touch. Snipers fire from roofs and through holes blasted into outer walls.
Seen through these holes, this part of Iraq’s second-largest city is a landscape of half-collapsed buildings, burned-out cars and rubbish-strewn streets. Helicopters hover and barricades of sandbags block the streets.
The Islamic State extremists who took over the city in 2014 were driven out of eastern Mosul by Iraq’s elite counterterrorism force in January. Much of the fighting in the city’s western districts, however, has been done by the heavily militarized federal police force.
