Pressure mounts on IS in Mosul
Islamic State group fighters were shaving their beards and changing hideouts in Mosul, residents said, as Iraqi forces moved ever closer to the city yesterday and civilians fled in growing numbers.
Reached by AFP inside Mosul, several residents said the jihadists seemed to be preparing for an assault after recent advances on the eastern front brought elite Iraqi forces to within five kilometres (three miles) of city limits.
"I saw some Daesh (IS) members and they looked completely different from the last time I saw them," said a resident of eastern Mosul who gave his name as Abu Saif.
"They had trimmed their beards and changed their clothes," the former businessman said. "They must be scared... they are also probably preparing to escape the city."
Residents and military officials said many IS fighters had relocated from eastern Mosul to their traditional bastions on the western bank of the Tigris river, closer to escape routes to Syria.
The sounds of fighting on the northern and eastern fronts of the Mosul offensive could now be heard inside the city, residents said, and US-led coalition aircraft were flying lower over the city than usual.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi fighters have been advancing on Mosul from the south, east and north after an offensive was launched on October 17 to retake the last major Iraqi city under IS control.
Some 3,000 to 5,000 IS fighters are believed to be inside Mosul, Iraq's second city, alongside more than a million trapped civilians.
Aid workers have warned of a major potential humanitarian crisis once fighting begins inside the city itself.
An Iraqi minister yesterday said that more than 3,300 civilians fleeing the fighting had sought help from the government the day before, the most for a single day so far.
As the noose tightened on Mosul, 13 defence chiefs from the 60-nation coalition meeting in Paris set their sights on Syria's Raqa, which would be the last major city under IS control if it loses Mosul.
Yesterday, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter and his British counterpart Michael Fallon said that offensive will begin in the next few weeks. Carter said the idea of simultaneous operations against Mosul and Raqa "has been part of our planning for quite a while."
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