Battle for Mosul

On October 2016, thousands of Iraqi security forces, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Sunni Arab tribesmen and Shiite militiamen, aided by US-led coalition fighter planes and military advisers, launched a “Battle of Mosul” offensive to retake the city Of Mosul, one of the most important cities in Iraq, dominated by extremists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL). Since 2014, when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s leader of the jihadists proclaimed the creation of a “caliphate”, parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iraq and Syria, especially the Kurdistan Region, are in the power of ISIL to gain economic and religious power through terrorism and violence.

ISIL fighters have lost territory since the offensive began and the government has announced the full “liberation” of eastern Mosul in January 2017. But the west of the city still has difficulty being liberated because of its narrow streets and the fury of extremists. According to the satellite images there is extensive damage in the infrastructure, buildings and archeological sites of Mosul, in particular in the airport and the city bridges. Hundreds of thousands of civilians – about 420,000 – have already fled the city and have been displaced from western Mosul since last February.