Elite Iraq Forces Punch into Mosul, Face Tough Resistance

Elite Iraqi forces in tanks and bulldozers thrust into Mosul Friday but faced intense gunfire and bombs from jihadists defending the city where their "caliphate" was born.

Soldiers of the Counter-Terrorism Service pushed into the eastern neighborhood of Al-Karamah, the first significant incursion into the city since a broad offensive to retake it began on October 17.

The CTS's "Mosul regiment", which was the last to leave the city when the jihadists overran it in June 2014, faced "tough resistance", commander Muntadhar Salem told an AFP reporter on the edge of the city.

The gunfire was almost uninterrupted and reports from the front crackling into CTS radios said IS had set up barriers and laid bombs along the streets to slow the advance.

Air strikes by the US-led coalition have intensified over the past two days to prepare for the advance, despite the smoke from burning tyres set on fire by IS in a bid to provide cover.

The resistance in Al-Karamah came despite widespread reports in recent weeks that top IS commanders had left the eastern side of the city and crossed the Tigris river to regroup on its west bank.

An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 IS fighters are scattered across the sprawling city, Iraq's second largest, where a million-plus civilians are believed to be trapped.

There has been an exodus of civilians from outlying villages this week but few managed to find a safe way out of the city itself.

- Back from the dead -Umm Ali couldn't hold back her tears when she spoke of her constant fear the jihadists would take her young sons.

"They kept coming to our home. Sometimes they'd knock on the door at 10:00 pm," she said. "They took our car, saying: 'This is the land of the caliphate, it belongs to us'."

Civilians seeking refuge in Kurdish-controlled areas east of the city recounted tales of IS brutality.

"We're coming from the world of the dead back to the world of the living," said Raed Ali, 40, who fled his home in the nearby village of Bazwaya.

In a rare audio message released on Thursday, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi urged his fighters to defend the city where he proclaimed the "caliphate" in June 2014.

The public announcement he made from the pulpit of Mosul's Great Mosque of al-Nuri heralded the most ambitious and brutal experiment in modern jihad, a period marked by mass murder, attempted genocide and slavery.

But his "caliphate" has been shrinking steadily since mid-2015 and the loss of Mosul would leave Raqa, in Syria, as the group's only major urban stronghold.

IS has been increasingly pragmatic in its tactics this year, falling back in the face of superior force even in some of its emblematic bastions such as Fallujah in Iraq and Dabiq in Syria.

- Caliphate 'on defensive' -However Baghdadi, in his first message of 2016, called on IS fighters still in Mosul to make a stand for Iraq's second city.

"Holding your ground with honor is a thousand times easier than retreating in shame," he said.

Aymenn al-Tamimi, a jihadism expert at the Middle East Forum said the tone of the half-hour speech was "very much of a caliphate on the defensive."

Iraqi forces and their Iranian and US-led coalition allies see the battle for Mosul as capping a two-year recovery from the rout that saw IS sweep through the Sunni Arab heartland north and west of Baghdad.

As they regained ground and the caliphate declined, defections from IS ranks increased, providing intelligence that enabled coalition aircraft to take out key field commanders.

IS has continued to post propaganda video from Mosul, the latest of which showed a busy market area and cars stopping at traffic lights.

With colder weather setting in, concern has grown for the the city's civilian population.

Aid groups say up to a million people could seek to flee as soon as they can but shelter is available for only a fraction of that number.

The United Nations says it has received credible reports of IS forcing tens of thousands of civilians into Mosul from outlying areas for use as "human shields".