The Christian town on the front line in the battle against Isis

Heavy resistance from Isis suicide car bombers, snipers, roadside explosives and mortar fire slowed the clearance of the town of Bartella east of Mosul on Thursday, although Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi claimed the operation was moving “more quickly than we thought”.

Iraqi Special Forces joined the offensive to push Isis out of Mosul, its last Iraqi stronghold, by looking to clear the jihadis out of the Christian town of Bartella about 10 minutes drive from Mosul. The aim would then to push on towards the city.

Despite Mr Abadi’s positive remarks, it was obvious that Isis fighters were make things as difficult as possible. Ten Isis car bombs made their way toward the Iraqi forces, with one going on to hit the convoy, according to General Maan Saad who is commanding the Iraqi Special Forces in the area.

He said that 80 of the more than 100 Isis fighters left in the town had been killed by Thursday afternoon, although progress was slow with each building needing to be checked, and buried improvised explosive devices (IEDs) a constant danger. The troops are being supported air strikes from the US-led coalition.

Gen Saad spoke to The Independent on the roof of a small warehouse on the edge of Bartella that was occupied by Isis fighters just hours before. The US trained Special Forces have been key to winning back territory from Isis in Anbar province further south, after the Iraqi army buckled under the pressure of the Isis advance in the summer of 2014 when the terror group seized Mosul.

In August of that year Isis pushed toward Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, attacking villages across the religiously and ethnically mixed Ninewa plains. In nearby Qaragosh, 50,000 Christians fled east and have still not been able to return home.

The assault to retake Bartella began at dawn and also included three tanks from the Iraqi army’s 9th division. From his roof-top perch, Gen Saad used a radio to coordinate soldiers to meet each other inside the town – seeking to throttle the last stand by Isis – as an Iraqi army helicopter thundered fire into Bartella from above, and the din of incoming mortars could be heard.

Elsewhere, Kurdish Peshmerga began a three-pronged assault that could be seen in the distance from a vantage point used to track the mission by the Iraqi Special Forces. The Peshmerga have launched a series of offensives to strengthen their hold on three sides of the city, today aiming to capture areas north of Bartella from the towns of Bashiqa, Nawaran and Tel Isqof, but coming up against stiff resistance, especially in Bashiqa, with multiple casualties and ambulance coming and going from the field hospital, according to witnesses there – casualty numbers are not known.

Not far away from Bartella, another set of Iraqi troops surrounded the Christian town of Qaragosh – with predictions that it too would soon be under the control of Iraqi government forces.

Meanwhile, displaced Iraqis from villages along the Mosul road that had already been recaptured returned to collect their belongings. They quickly piled trucks high with salvaged bedding and furniture, but not hanging around amid the danger of the ongoing battle and heading for displacement camps.

Outside Bartella, with smoke plumed up from the fight in the town, three Special Forces soldiers and a member of the Kurdish Peshmerga slouched together chatting under the shade of a black Humvee which was adorned with a fluttering Iraqi flag, and topped with piles of colourful blankets.

Muhammed Taqi – an Iraqi soldier from Baghdad – said he pulled back from the fight after three of their men were injured, but there had been no fatalities. Cracks of gunfire sounded in the background, and to the right and left, the grass was burnt orange and sewed with IEDs. In the centre of town, the men still had to de-mine the streets and building.

“There are still some fighters in the houses but all the streets are blocked so they should die” said Mr Taqi. “There were a lot of car bombs. It’s still not 100 per cent safe.” He said Isis also used snipers and mortars despite the overwhelming pressure of the Iraqi ground and coalition air campaign.

open image in gallery

Mustafa Jabour, a Kurdish Peshmerga soldier from Bartella, stood beside Taqi as he talked. Jabour said he wished he had been able to take part in the assault to retake his home town, but said, “I am proud of them [the Iraqi forces]...There is no difference between us.”

Coordination between the Peshmerga and Iraqi forces bodes well for retaking Mosul: the fight in the city is expected to be lead by the Iraqi Special Forces.

“The Iraqi army is better than before and more professional” said Peshmerga General Shahab Muhammed. Speaking from his base south of Bartella, he said that internally displaced persons (IDPs) from villages close to Mosul had been arriving recently and were being sent for screenings by the Kurdish security.

Gen Saad praised the coordination between himself, his Iraqi troops and the Peshmerga, but refused to predict a timeline for when his forces would enter Mosul. He said that the morale of the Isis fighters was affected when they saw the power of his force's attack.

It is perhaps this type of cooperation that Iraq’s Prime Minister Mr Abadi had in mind in addressing an anti-Isis coalition meeting in Paris on Thursday. Mr Abadi said the Mosul advance demonstrated that Iraqis from all groups could fight in common cause, noting that it was the first time in 25 years that troops from the Baghdad government had entered territory controlled by the Kurdish region to fight alongside the Peshmerga.

“Our war today in Mosul is an Iraqi war conducted by Iraqis for Iraqis and for the defence of Iraq's territory,” he said. “Full Iraqi unity is shining through and more than ever showing the unity to vanquish terrorism.”

Back outside Bartella, Taher Saeed, 54 – a former resident of the town – gazed out over the town with tears in his eyes. His family fled their home one Sunday more than two years ago when the jihadis of Isis came.

Isis chased the last remaining Christians from their historical home in Mosul after giving the community the option to convert to Islam, pay a tax or die by the sword: they fled. “I can’t stop the tears,” he said, crying while watching the smoke rise above his hometown.

A Syriac Catholic, he remembered attending the St Gorgis church when he was younger. He described the idea of returning to Bartella once Isis had been driven out, as being like a “rebirth”.