Contact Admin. On January 23, a coalition airstrike took out an Islamic State vehicle on a road near Mosul, as can be seen below in footage released by the US Defense Department. The attack was one of five airstrikes near Mosul that day. Coalition aircraft targeted four Islamic State tactical units, an improvised-explosive-device storage facility, an ammunition storage facility, two tactical vehicles, a fighting position, two mortars, and eight vehicles.
The strikes also targeted 14 watercraft and three barges, modes of transport the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh, has used to maneuver up and down the Tigris River, which cuts through the center of Mosul, moving fighters and launching attacks.
Iraqi ground forces recaptured eastern Mosul at the end of January and are gearing up for an assault on western Mosul, where several thousand ISIS fighters and hundreds of thousands of civilians are still hunkered down. Elite Iraqi forces charged with leading the campaign against ISIS in Mosul sustained heavy casualties in the eastern part of the city. Civilians have also suffered a heavy toll.
Coalition officials have admitted to some civilian deaths in airstrikes, while international monitors report that several hundred Iraqis have died from airstrikes in Mosul alone. ISIS fighters also brutalized noncombatants in eastern Mosul, frequently firing on liberated areas of the city with snipers and artillery.
Despite two years of ISIS occupation and months of fighting in the city, everyday life has started to return for Iraqis in eastern Mosul. Earlier this month, US Army Lt. The YPG has a leftist ideology that spurns both Islamic fundamentalism and capitalism.
