BAGHDAD // ISIL militants are preparing for a desperate last stand in Mosul are booby-trapping homes with civilians inside and welding doors shut on starving families to prevent the population from fleeing, residents say.
Iraqi forces are closing in fast on the Old City and its narrow streets, where extremist group is expected to focus its significantly depleted military capabilities.
While the group has repeatedly resorted to human shields to cover its movements, they appear to be taking the tactic to new levels in Mosul.
“Daesh came to our house and welded the door. They gave us a small amount of water and a white cloth and said: ‘Here’s a shroud for you’,” said one resident of Zinjili neighbourhood.
The woman sent a voice message to a relative living in the “liberated” eastern side of Mosul and said she was now trapped in her own house with her husband, her four children and no food.
Resources were already scarce when the huge government offensive to wrest back Mosul from ISIL was launched in October last year.
After more than six months of fighting, the living conditions of residents of the last neighbourhoods ISIL still holds are beyond dire.
A 35-year-old man who gave his name as Abu Rami and lives in the Old City of west Mosul said ISIL was desperate to keep the population from running away.
“They have been doing this lately. When they suspect a family of intending to escape to the security forces, they lock them in,” he said by phone.
“They have detained several families like this here, and in some cases they weld the doors to be sure,” he said. Houses in Mosul often have barred windows or are built around walled courtyards with a single door onto the street.
“Those families have a choice of dying of hunger, disease or shelling.”
Abdulkarim Al Obeidi, a civil activist from Mosul, said an estimated 250,000 people were still trapped in the Old City and the handful of other areas that remain under ISIL control.
“Daesh is locking doors on families inside those areas that have not yet been liberated. They are detaining people,” he said.
He put the number of ISIL fighters defending their last redoubts in west Mosul at around 600. This means the militants are massively outnumbered, making it increasingly important for them to resort to human shields as part of their defence strategy.
“Daesh members have everything they need because they raided people’s homes and took their food stockpiles,” Mr Al Obeidi said, advocating airdrops to save thousands from starving to death.
“Daesh wants to sow terror among civilians with this filthy tactic of welding doors shut on people,” said Hossameddin Al Abbar, a councillor for Nineveh, the province of which Mosul is the capital.
“There are people dying of hunger and disease now, especially children and elderly people,” he said, adding that it was impossible to know exactly how many.
“At this stage, hunger is killing more than shelling and fighting.”
Another method residents say ISIL has used to prevent a civilian exodus is booby-trapping, a weapon the extremists had previously used mainly to kill or maim the advancing government forces.
A senior officer of the interior ministry’s elite Rapid Response forces said they had found several families stuck in booby-trapped homes since the launch last week of an operation in north-western Mosul.
“The Daesh gangs are booby-trapping houses with people inside them,” Major General Thamer Abu Turab said in west Mosul.
“We found eight such houses, where our EOD [ordnance disposal] teams were able to defuse the devices and get the families out,” he said.
The militants’ deterrence seems effective as cases of families attempting to flee IS-held areas before the arrival of the federal security forces are relatively rare.
Many of the civilians who are not locked in by ISIL essentially do it themselves and hunker down in basements with whatever food supplies they still have.
Abu Imad, a middle-aged former restaurant employee who lives with his family of five in the Zinjili neighbourhood, said the population was terrified.
“Behind the walls on the streets, there are rooms and cellars packed with people too scared to move. And hunger is killing people now,” he said by phone.
“I know some people have started eating plants and are boiling paper. At this rate you will soon see people eating cats and dogs.”
* Agence France-Presse
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match info
Maratha Arabians 138-2
C Lynn 91*, A Lyth 20, B Laughlin 1-15
Team Abu Dhabi 114-3
L Wright 40*, L Malinga 0-13, M McClenaghan 1-17
Maratha Arabians won by 24 runs
Our Time Has Come
Alyssa Ayres, Oxford University Press
Company profile: buybackbazaar.com
Name: buybackbazaar.com
Started: January 2018
Founder(s): Pishu Ganglani and Ricky Husaini
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech, micro finance
Initial investment: $1 million
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A timeline of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language
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Our legal columnist
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Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
The Details
Article 15
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Directed by: Anubhav Sinha
Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Kumud Mishra, Manoj Pahwa, Sayani Gupta, Zeeshan Ayyub
Our rating: 4/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
Ticket prices
- Golden circle - Dh995
- Floor Standing - Dh495
- Lower Bowl Platinum - Dh95
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- Upper Bowl Premium - Dh395
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Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
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What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women & the Food That Tells Their Stories
Laura Shapiro
Fourth Estate
TO A LAND UNKNOWN
Director: Mahdi Fleifel
Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa
Rating: 4.5/5
Farasan Boat: 128km Away from Anchorage
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Moral education needed in a 'rapidly changing world'
Moral education lessons for young people is needed in a rapidly changing world, the head of the programme said.
Alanood Al Kaabi, head of programmes at the Education Affairs Office of the Crown Price Court - Abu Dhabi, said: "The Crown Price Court is fully behind this initiative and have already seen the curriculum succeed in empowering young people and providing them with the necessary tools to succeed in building the future of the nation at all levels.
"Moral education touches on every aspect and subject that children engage in.
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Electric scooters: some rules to remember
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- Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
- Do not drive outside designated lanes
hall of shame
SUNDERLAND 2002-03
No one has ended a Premier League season quite like Sunderland. They lost each of their final 15 games, taking no points after January. They ended up with 19 in total, sacking managers Peter Reid and Howard Wilkinson and losing 3-1 to Charlton when they scored three own goals in eight minutes.
SUNDERLAND 2005-06
Until Derby came along, Sunderland’s total of 15 points was the Premier League’s record low. They made it until May and their final home game before winning at the Stadium of Light while they lost a joint record 29 of their 38 league games.
HUDDERSFIELD 2018-19
Joined Derby as the only team to be relegated in March. No striker scored until January, while only two players got more assists than goalkeeper Jonas Lossl. The mid-season appointment Jan Siewert was to end his time as Huddersfield manager with a 5.3 per cent win rate.
ASTON VILLA 2015-16
Perhaps the most inexplicably bad season, considering they signed Idrissa Gueye and Adama Traore and still only got 17 points. Villa won their first league game, but none of the next 19. They ended an abominable campaign by taking one point from the last 39 available.
FULHAM 2018-19
Terrible in different ways. Fulham’s total of 26 points is not among the lowest ever but they contrived to get relegated after spending over £100 million (Dh457m) in the transfer market. Much of it went on defenders but they only kept two clean sheets in their first 33 games.
LA LIGA: Sporting Gijon, 13 points in 1997-98.
BUNDESLIGA: Tasmania Berlin, 10 points in 1965-66
Al Jazira's foreign quartet for 2017/18
Romarinho, Brazil
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Sardor Rashidov, Uzbekistan
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The biog
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Nationality: New Zealand
Education: Degree in zoology at The University of Sydney
Favourite book: Lemurs of Madagascar by Russell A Mittermeier
Favourite music: Billy Joel
Weekends and holidays: Talking about animals or visiting his farm in Australia
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
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