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dpa/reuters
Baghdad
More than 100 civilians were killed in a powerful~explosion in a residential area of Mosul, Iraq, on Wednesday, an army officer and an activist said.
Brigadier Mohammed al Jabouri, a commander in the military~campaign to retake Mosul from the Islamic State extremist group, said on Thursday that 108 bodies have been retrieved.
Information about the blast, believed to have taken place late Wednesday, only emerged Thursday. Al Jabouri told DPA that the explosion in the area of Mosul al Jadida, close to western Mosul, was a result of booby traps set by Islamic State.
Independent activist platform Mosul Eye put the toll at 130, including children and women, and spoke of a double bombing in the area.
It said that Iraq's federal police forces also fired rockets at the site.
Trapped civilians
About 400,000 Iraqi civilians are trapped in the Islamic State-held Old City of western Mosul, short of food and basic needs as the battle between the militants and government forces rages around them, the United Nations refugee agency said on Thursday.
Many fear fleeing because of Islamic State snipers and landmines."The worst is yet to come. Because 400,000 people trapped in the Old City in that situation of panic and penury may inevitably lead to the cork-popping somewhere, sometime, presenting us with a fresh outflow of large-scale proportions," he said.
Fighting in the past week has focused on the Old City, with government forces reaching as close as 500 metres to the Al Nuri Mosque, from where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria in July 2014.
The hardline militants are now on the back foot, with their stronghold in Syria also under attack. But they still hold an estimated 40 percent of western Mosul and the campaign to recapture it could yet take weeks.
The government halted offensive operations on Thursday morning due to cloudy weather, which makes it difficult to bring in air support. Later, Federal Police reinforcements moved towards the Old City and the troops were preparing to storm the area and retake the mosque, a police spokesman said.
"Dozens of Daesh (IS) snipers are still positioned on rooftops of the Old City high buildings, posing a threat to our soldiers," he said.
"We are waiting for the weather to improve so air strikes can compromise Daesh snipers and pave the way for the imminent advance and minimise casualties among our troops." A police sergeant named Mohamed, sheltering in an empty villa about 300 metres from the line as sporadic mortar and sniper fire came for IS positions, said:"They are using everything against now".
