MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Thousands of Iraqis surged out of western Mosul on Saturday during a lull in heavy fighting in districts around the densely populated Old City where Iraqi forces are facing fierce resistance from Islamic State militants.

Displaced Iraqi people from different areas in Mosul flee their homes after clashes to reach safe areas, as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants in the city of Mosul, Iraq March 18, 2017. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal

Five months into the battle to take Islamic State’s last bastion in Iraq, government forces have cleared the east and half of western Mosul, and are now focused on controlling the Old City as well as the strategic al-Nuri Mosque.

As fighting has entered into the narrow alleyways and densely populated parts of the west, more residents are fleeing liberated areas where food and water are scarce, security fragile and where homes are often caught in shelling.

“We have been trapped for 25 days. No water, no food, everyone will die and they will have to pull us from the rubble,” said one resident of Bab Jdid district, not giving his name because relatives remained inside Mosul.

Families with elderly relatives and children marched through western Mosul’s muddy streets, past buildings pock-marked by bullet and bombs. Some said they had hardly eaten in weeks, scrambling for supplies handed out by a local aid agency.

“It is terrible, Islamic State have destroyed us. There is no food, no bread. There is absolutely nothing,” said another resident.

As many as 600,000 civilians may be caught inside the city with the militants.

Iraqi forces cut off Mosul from the remaining territory that Islamic State controls in Iraq and Syria. But even in liberated areas, many prefer to leave the city amid heavy fighting.

Around 255,000 people have been displaced from Mosul and surrounding areas since October, including more than 100,000 since the latest military campaign in western Mosul began on Feb. 19, according to United Nations figures.

The last week has seen the highest level of displacement yet, with 32,000 displaced between March 12 and 15.

Heavy rains and clouds this week restricted air cover and helicopters, slowing the advance of Federal Police and Rapid Response forces who are consolidating positions around the Old City and the al-Nuri Mosque.

“The weather is cloudy and rainy but our forces are advancing toward their targets,” Federal Police Major General Haider Dhirgham told reporters at the forward base inside Mosul. “In a few steps and strikes we will reach the Nuri mosque.”

As militants retreat into the confined streets of the Old City, Islamic State has been resisting with snipers, mortars and the armored suicide car bombs that plow into army positions.

The fall of Mosul would be a significant blow to Islamic State, whose leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi used the al-Nuri mosque to declare a self-proclaimed caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria in 2014.

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U.S. officials have estimated that around 2,000 fighters remain inside the city. But even after the liberation of Mosul, there are risks that militants will return to the kind of guerrilla warfare and bombings they have used in the past.

(Click here for a graphic on 'Battle for Mosul' here)</s>As fighting continues between Iraqi forces and ISIL fighters, civilians have been fleeing the city in droves.

Mosul, Iraq - Last month, Iraqi forces resumed their assault on the city of Mosul, which has been under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS) since 2014.

The eastern side of the city was recaptured in a three-month offensive that ended in January, but the west, with its densely populated maze of narrow streets, is thought to pose a greater challenge.

Surrounded by a diverse array of Iraqi forces, the remaining ISIL fighters are digging in for a fight to the end, using car bombs, snipers and grenade-laden drones to slow the troops' advances.

Meanwhile, civilians have been fleeing Mosul in droves, with tens of thousands more expected to be displaced as fighting continues in the weeks ahead.</s>Iraqi police say the recapture of al-Kur and al-Tawafa will enable civilians to move to safer areas.

Iraqi forces in Mosul have said they have captured two key neighbourhoods in its offensive to retake the western part of the city from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

Adel Ahmed, the captain of the federal police, said control of the al-Kur and al-Tawafa will allow for a safe corridor for civilians to leave the city.

“Liberating both districts will allow opening secured corridors for the exit of civilians to safer areas,” he told the DPA news agency.

Ahmed also said Saturday's advance followed intense clashes between Iraqi forces and ISIL fighters.

The Iraqi military launched the most recent offensive on western Mosul, the largest remaining ISIL stronghold in Iraq, on February 19.

On Wednesday, Iraqi forces took control of a main bridge leading to the city and advanced towards the mosque where ISIL's leader declared a "caliphate" in 2014.

Nearly 100,000 Iraqis have fled western Mosul over the past three weeks, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Wednesday.

The Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration said that as many as 600,000 civilians remained trapped in neighbourhoods of west Mosul.

IN PICTURES: The battle for western Mosul

The operation in the city officially began in October last year. In January, its eastern half was declared "fully liberated".</s>Iraqi security forces have advanced into the Old City of Mosul, where they are locked in pitched street battles with Islamic State (IS) militants.

Iraqi forces, backed by U.S. air strikes, launched an operation to retake west Mosul in February. The eastern half of the city was captured by government troops in January.

Firas al-Zuwaidi, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry's elite Rapid Response Force, said government forces were closing in on the Al-Nuri Mosque.

The mosque holds symbolic importance because it was where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his so-called caliphate in 2014.

Iraqi forces have recaptured a string of key targets in west Mosul, including the airport, the train station, and the provincial government headquarters.

Despite these gains, bad weather has hampered U.S. air support and the Old City's densely populated, narrow streets have restricted the use of large armored vehicles.

Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters</s>Mosul: Iraqi government forces battling the Islamic State retook control of more areas in the old city centre of western Mosul, while an international airstrike on the IS positions killed six leaders of the extremist group in the city, the Iraqi military said on Sunday.

The commandos of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) fought heavy clashes against the IS militants during the day and freed the neighbourhood of Nablus in west of the old city centre and raised the Iraqi flags over some of its buildings, Abdul-Amir Yarallah from the Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement, Xinhua reported.

The elite CTS special forces are also fighting the IS militants in several nearby neighbourhoods, as they have been advancing closer to the western edge of Mosul's densely populated old city centre, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are believed to still be trapped under the IS rule.

Meanwhile, the progress by the federal police and Rapid Response brigades, the elite Interior Ministry units, was slowed by bad weather and fierce resistance of the IS militants in the newly-freed Bab al-Toub neighbourhood and adjacent areas.

Also in the day, the US-led international coalition conducted an airstrike and killed six IS leaders in Souq al-Shaareen area in the IS-held city centre in western Mosul, locally known as the right bank of the Tigris River, which bisects Mosul, the JOC statement said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, announced the start of an offensive on February 19 to drive extremist militants out of the western side of Mosul.

Late in January, Abadi declared the liberation of the eastern side of Mosul, or the left bank of Tigris, after more than 100 days of fighting against IS militants. However, the western part of Mosul, with its narrow streets and a population of between 750,000 and 800,000, appears to be a bigger challenge to the Iraqi forces.

Mosul, 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under the IS control since June 2014, when government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.</s>ISIL positions in city's west targeted as Iraqi troops close in on mosque from where Baghdadi declared his caliphate.

Iraqi army helicopters are firing rockets at ISIL positions in Mosul's Old City as troops on the ground close in on al-Nuri Mosque, a centuries-old structure famous for its leaning minaret.

Federal Police troops advanced past the train station in western Mosul closer to the mosque on Sunday. A police commander said they were very close to taking control of it.

Residents fled from the area, carrying bags of belongings and picking their way through the wrecked buildings as shells and gunfire echoed behind them. Most of them were women and children.

"Federal Police and Rapid Response forces resumed their advance after halting operations due to bad weather. The troops have a target of retaking the rest of the Old City," a police spokesman said.

The battle to recapture the last stronghold of ISIL, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group, in Iraq has now entered its sixth month.

Iraqi government forces, backed by US advisers, artillery and air support, have cleared the east and half of western Mosul and are now focused on controlling the Old City.

Recent fighting has targeted the strategic al-Nuri Mosque. Its capture would be a blow for ISIL, also known as ISIS, as it was from there that leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate in July 2014 after the group had seized chunks of Iraq and Syria.

US officials estimate about 2,000 ISIL fighters remain inside Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, resisting with mortar fire, snipers and suicide car bombs that attack army positions.

The black ISIL flag still flew from the mosque's minaret on Sunday.

Al Jazeera's Stefanie Dekker, reporting from east Mosul, said thousands of civilians were trying to escape the fighting.

"We have been hearing many stories from people feeling western Mosul - civilians caught in the middle, being killed by all sides in the conflict. The numbers seem alarmingly high. So far the exact toll has been impossible to confirm," she said.

"As Iraqi forces push further into the heart of western Mosul, the more resistance they face, especially since the battle has now reached the outskirts of the densely populated Old City. ISIL is using a seemingly never ending supply of suicide car bombers and snipers."

As many as 600,000 civilians may be caught inside the city with ISIL fighters.

About 255,000 people have been displaced from Mosul and surrounding areas since October, including more than 100,000 since the military campaign in western Mosul began on February 19, according to UN figures.

The last week has seen the highest level of displacement yet, with 32,000 displaced between March 12 and 15.

"The front lines haven't moved much over the last few days," our correspondent said.

"The weather was playing a role on this battlefield. When the sky is grey and it's raining, Iraqi advances are usually slowed, as the cloudy skies hinder pilots and their air support. ISIL also often uses the cover to carry out counter attacks.

"The weather also has an effect on the tens of thousands who are streaming out of Mosul, making their lives even more miserable."

Federal Police moved into the city on foot from near the train station towards the Old City, negotiating rubble-filled streets.

General Khalid al-Obedi, the police commander, said: "We are advancing toward the Old City. Their resistance is weakening. They are mostly using car bombs and that shows they are losing on the ground."

Meanwhile, Federal Police arrested Husam Sheet al-Jabouri, the local chief of Diwan al-Hisba, an ISIL unit responsible for enforcing strict Islamic rules, in Mosul's Bab al-Sijin area, a police statement said.</s>MOSUL, Iraq (AP) - As Iraqi forces pushed into southwestern Mosul, four Islamic State fighters moved into Omar Khudair's home and took up positions on the roof.

The 17-year-old, his parents and siblings took cover in his aunt's house next door, and for the next half hour they huddled in a back room as the battle raged overhead. Then the airstrikes came, blowing up a cluster of houses, killing not only the fighters, but 18 members of Khudair's extended family. The teen was one of the few to survive, left covered in burns and shrapnel wounds.

The fight for the western half of Mosul could the deadliest yet for civilians. Iraqi forces have increasingly turned to airstrikes and artillery to clear heavily populated, dense urban terrain, and residents running out of food and supplies are fleeing their homes at higher rates than previously seen in the Mosul operation.

More than 750 civilians have been killed or wounded since the fight for western Mosul began a month ago, front-line medics say, a number they expect to spike as Iraqi forces push into the old city. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

By comparison, some 1,600 civilians were killed or wounded during the 100 days of fighting to recapture Mosul's less densely populated east, according to reports from nearby hospitals. Mosul's east was declared fully liberated in January.

Airwars, a London-based group that tracks civilian deaths from airstrikes targeting IS in Iraq and Syria, estimates the number of casualties to be much higher, claiming more than 300 civilians have been killed in western Mosul over the last month.

The Pentagon, which has yet to release casualty figures from the last month, has acknowledged 220 civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since the U.S. campaign against IS began in 2014.

Of the nearly 300,000 people who have fled Mosul since the operation to retake Iraq's second largest city began in October, more than 100,000 have left in the past month alone, according to the United Nations.

Many are fleeing because they have no more food, said Azher Adnan, a local pharmacist volunteering as a medic at a clinic just south of the city. "Every one of my patients, the first thing they say when they approach my clinic is 'I'm hungry,'" he said.

Civilians who have escaped said food began to run low in October as the wealthy hoarded what they could. By January, grocery store shelves were completely bare.

"The population of Mosul's west is different from the east," Adnan said. "Here you have more people in poverty, they couldn't afford to prepare for the siege."

In eastern Mosul, most militants withdrew in the face of the assault, leaving small contingents of four of five fighters to pin down troops in urban combat. But Lt. Gen. Sami al-Arathi, of Iraq's special forces, said the fighters cornered in west Mosul have nowhere to run. "Now, they are forced to fight to the death," he said.

Faced with heavier resistance in more dense urban terrain, Iraqi forces are relying even more on airstrikes and artillery, heightening the risk to civilians and leaving scenes of devastation in their wake.

"This area used to be so beautiful," said Mohammed Ali of the Federal Police, which have been battling their way up the Tigris along what used to be a scenic riverside boulevard, leaving behind mangled park benches and shattered flower boxes.

Ali, who hails from a town just outside Mosul, remembers spending time on the corniche as a teenager.

"Families and girls would come here," he said, laughing. "We used to follow the girls, but they never gave us any attention."

U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Martin, the commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq, said the coalition is "probably" launching more airstrikes in western Mosul than in the east because more coalition troops have been authorized to approve air support for Iraqi forces.

"We're going to strike ISIS wherever we can so that the Iraqis can be successful," Martin said, referring to the extremist group by another acronym.

He said changes to the U.S. rules of engagement are allowing the coalition to strike faster and more accurately. Martin said Iraqi commanders are still trying to preserve infrastructure and minimize civilian casualties - but that the militants have other ideas.

IS has fired at least 4,284 mortars, rockets, and artillery rounds "indiscriminately" in western Mosul since January, showing "complete disregard of human life," he said.

Humanitarian organizations warn that the destruction, displacement and civilian casualties are likely to spike as Iraqi forces push into Mosul's old city, where streets are the width of alleyways.

A senior Western diplomat who attends military planning meetings said Iraq's military showed that they were capable of protecting civilians in eastern Mosul, but will face a much greater challenge in the old city.

"In the old city (Iraqi forces) are going to have to get out of their vehicles and they've got to go house to house," the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss military planning. "Families are going to be at extreme risk."

In Mamun, one of the first western Mosul neighborhoods to be retaken from IS, nearly every customer at a corner vegetable market knew at least one person who had been killed during the past month's fighting.

Ahmed Khalil pointed to where he said a rocket had killed a mother and her children. He gestured further down the street, where he said IS snipers had picked off civilians trying to flee.

"We couldn't even take the bodies to the cemetery because the clashes were so heavy," he said. "We had to just bury them where they fell."

Another customer, Mashad Fathi, pointed to a street where a whole row of buildings had collapsed. "The bodies of one of the families are still under the rubble."</s>750,000 Iraqis are trapped in the western part of the city as Iraqi forces fight house to house to force ISIL out.

A humanitarian crisis on the verge of stretching aid agencies to breaking point - that's how the UN coordinator in Iraq describes the situation in western Mosul.

Around 150,000 Iraqis have been forced from their homes during the last month of fighting, with more expected.

Many have found shelter in camps, which aid workers say are overwhelmed.

Iraqi forces are battling ISIL in western areas of Mosul.

ISIL fighters are resisting with car bombs, snipers and drones laden with grenades to slow the Iraqi army advance.

Western Mosul, which includes the Old City, is densely populated with civilians who are caught in the cross-fire.

Will Mosul's liberation end the plight of the displaced?</s>The Iraqi army, backed by helicopters, advanced on western Mosul and pushed into the area around the al-Nuri mosque on Sunday.

Taking the mosque where Islamic State leader gave a much publicized sermon in July of 2014 is a symbolic victory for the government. But retaking the Old City of Mosul is riddled with challenges.

Iraqi troops have to use extra caution to spare civilians and ancient structures as they fight Islamic State in the Old City of Mosul.

The government says its forces have made new advances in western Mosul, but the militants, who are holed in the densely populated civilian areas, are putting up fierce resistance.

"It is one of the toughest areas, and in fact it is difficult, chaotic and very tight, but our forces managed to get out of their vehicles and enter the Old City," Lieutenant General Haidre Yusuf Abdulla, of the Iraqi Federal Police, said.

Militants are believed to be using suicide bombers to block the advance of government troops. Military officials say fighting in the densely populated Old City is extremely difficult.

"The challenges are, firstly, how to avoid hitting civilians because they (IS) are using them as human shields. And secondly, the area is difficult because it is in an ancient neighborhood and we use less heavy weapons," Brigadier-General Abbas Al-Juburi, a commander with the Iraqi Rapid Response Division, said.

Civilians are streaming out of western Mosul with meager possessions and people wounded by landmines or booby traps.

"There are bodies lying on the ground; they were killed by booby traps under the car at this corner. They passed and stepped on the wire. There are 15 dead bodies; they've started to rot. We wanted to take them, but the militants didn't let us. They shot at us," Mosul resident Abu Dunia said.

The Iraqi government launched a massive U.S.-backed operation in October to retake Mosul from Islamic State. About 250,000 people have been displaced from the area since that battle began.

"The situation is terrible. Islamic State militants have destroyed us. There is no food. There is no bread. There is nothing," said a man fleeing Bab el Beit in West Mosul.

But those who have escaped feel lucky. More than a half-million civilians remain trapped by the militants in the Old City of Mosul.</s>Displaced Iraqi people from different areas in Mosul wait to be transferred to a safe area during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, in the city of Mosul, Iraq March 18, 2017. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Shihab Ayed and several other men struggled to push a cart carrying the bodies of his son and wife, wrapped in blankets, through a muddy ditch nearly two miles (3 km) from their destroyed home in Mosul.

Four other carts followed, laden with days-old corpses from air strikes which the men said had killed 21 relatives and neighbors in an area Islamic State militants controlled earlier in the week.

Ayed, a 40-year-old laborer, pulled back a blanket to show his only son, three-and-a-half year-old Ahmed, lying lifeless with his eyes closed and a big gash in his right cheek.

"Three houses were destroyed by two air strikes," Ayed said.

"Islamic State fighters were firing from our house and from the road outside, and we were hiding inside. Fifteen minutes later the strikes hit.

"We pulled the bodies from the rubble and now we're going to bury them. Then I'll come back to my three remaining daughters," Ayed said, in tears.

The bodies had begun to smell but it had only just become safe enough to leave the district, now cleared of the militants, and bring the carts to Mosul airport, where a bus might be able to take them to the nearest village for burial, he said.

Reuters counted about 15 corpses on the carts.

They are among the latest victims caught in the crossfire of an intensifying battle between U.S.-backed Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants holed up the center of Mosul, their last major stronghold in Iraq.

Rights groups have expressed concern over the mounting civilian death toll, as Islamic State fights from homes and densely-populated areas, a threat the Iraqi military and U.S.-led coalition have been countering with heavy weaponry to support troops on the ground.

Families fleeing Mosul in recent weeks have talked of high numbers of civilians killed by air strikes, and said that in many cases Islamic State fighters have already slipped away by the time the bombs hit.

"When the coalition see a sniper on a home, it's five or ten minutes before that house is hit," Mohammed Mahmoud, a 40-year-old former police officer, told Reuters in another area of Mosul.

"But they don't kill the Daesh (IS) militants. Daesh withdraw, and the strikes end up killing civilians - whole families."

Islamic State's tactics since the beginning of the offensive to drive them out of Mosul, which began in October, have been to deploy car bombs and snipers, rain shellfire on troops and residents alike and take cover among the civilian population.

On Friday, even as Ayed and his helpers waited with their carts, helicopters fired at positions in Mosul and forces further back launched Grad missiles into the city.

Human Rights Watch has said the fight to recapture the western half of Mosul has been "dirtier and deadlier to civilians" than the battle to retake the east, which was completed in January.

The New York-based watchdog said Iraqi Interior Ministry units had recently used non-precision rockets in west Mosul.

"Their indiscriminate nature makes their use in populated civilian areas a serious violation of the laws of war," it said in a statement.

Separately, the United Nations says it has received many reports of civilian deaths in air strikes.

The number of civilians killed in the Mosul campaign - by Islamic State, including executions, or by errant Iraqi and coalition fire - is unclear, with various estimates given by residents, watchdogs and the military.

The U.S.-led coalition backing Iraqi forces with air power and military advisers admits causing unintentional civilian deaths.

This month the U.S. military said the total number of civilians killed by the coalition since the start of operations against the militant group in 2014 in both Iraq and Syria was 220.

That estimate is lower than those of some monitoring groups.

Airwars, a journalist-run project to monitor civilian casualties, says at least 2,590 civilians have likely been killed by coalition "actions" since 2014, including scores in Mosul in the first week of March alone.

Coalition and Iraqi forces have mostly been careful to avoid civilian deaths, a reason military officials said they slowed some assaults in eastern Mosul last year.

But the west, which houses the narrow-alleyed Old City, has been a tougher fight, and Islamic State have pinned down Iraqi forces for days on end in some areas without significant advances.

The level of destruction is visibly greater, with dozens of buildings flattened and large holes in roads from air strikes.

In the wrecked Mamoun district on Tuesday, a man trudged down a muddy road in search of body bags.

"I have 18 bodies I need to bury -- my brother's family," Faisal Umm Tayran, 50, said matter-of-factly.

"They're just lying in the garden at the moment."
Thousands of Iraqis flee western Mosul as the battle between Iraqi and allied forces and ISIL militants escalates in the densely populated Old City.