More room needed for people streaming from city to escape fighting between US-backed Iraqi forces and ISIL.

The United Nations has said it is expanding camps for displaced people around the battered Iraqi city of Mosul as the number of displaced people hit 300,000, and a US-backed assault on ISIL there continued.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Tuesday that a total of 392,000 people had fled their homes since the Iraqi government offensive to push the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group from the city began in October. Some 94,500 have since returned, it said.

The International Organization for Migration puts the number of displaced at 302,400.

Mosul had a pre-campaign population of about a million and half, split more or less evenly between the sides lying east and west of the Tigris river that runs through its middle.

Iraqi forces captured the eastern side in January and in February launched a second phase to take the western side, with air and ground support from a US-led coalition.

They are now battling to take the northwestern part, but the civilian death toll has mounted in the densely populated Old City, where the fighters are dug in.

More people are expected to flee the fighting and camps for the displaced north and east of Mosul are expanding, the UN statement said.

Bombing raids on the city by the Iraqi air force resumed on Tuesday as the sky cleared after several days of bad weather, the Iraqi military said.

A number of ISIL commanders were killed in an air raid on a position in Hay al-Tanak, a stronghold of the group in the west of Mosul, the army said in statement.

Among those killed were commanders in charge of booby traps, of suicide fighters and child recruitment, the statement added, without identifying them by name.

The improved weather should also allow ground forces to resume their advance towards the Grand al-Nuri Mosque, where ISIL's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a "caliphate" nearly three years ago over parts of Iraq and Syria. </s> Up to 100,000 Iraqis may flee to Syria and Turkey to escape the military assault on the northern city of Mosul, the United Nations refugee agency said on Monday.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) issued an appeal for an additional $61 million (€55.5 million) to provide tents, camps, winter items and stoves for those displaced inside Iraq, and new refugees needing shelter in the two neighbouring countries.

“UNHCR is concerned that events in Mosul may cause up to 100,000 Iraqis to flee towards Syria and Turkey,” it said. “Preparedness plans are underway in Syria to receive up to 90,000 Iraqi refugees.”

Iraqi government forces, with air and ground support from the US-led coalition, launched an offensive on Monday to drive Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul, the militants’ last major stronghold in the country.

More than 3 million people are already internally displaced in Iraq and aid agencies say up to one million could flee Mosul, a city of 1.5 million where in 2014 Islamic State proclaimed a “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria.

UNHCR said that a site that previously hosted Iraqi refugees is being readied to accommodate another wave in Syria, currently home to some 26,000 Iraqi refugees, many of whom have been living in exile for 10 years.

UNHCR said that within Iraq it had in place 21,800 tents, sufficient to cover the shelter needs of 130,800 people, with more arriving every day. “Given the possible scale of displacement, additional tents are a priority for UNHCR.” </s> BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber detonated a pick-up truck on Wednesday in Sadr City, a heavily populated poor Shia suburb of Baghdad, killing at least 15 and wounding 50, security sources said.

The explosion, the deadliest in Baghdad so far this year, targeted a crowded street full of garages and used car dealers. Islamic has stepped up bombings in Iraq last year, in retaliation to a U.S.-backed campaign that dislodged the hardline group from most Iraqi cities it took over in 2014. The militants also control parts of neighbouring Syria.

Meanwhile, living conditions in west Mosul, where jihadists are hunkering down among 750,000 Iraqi civilians, are deteriorating fast and a source of great concern, the UN's top aid official said Wednesday.

"We are extremely concerned about the rapid deterioration of the conditions in west Mosul," United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Iraq Lise Grande told reporters.

"Families are in big trouble, half of the shops have been closed," she said while visiting Hasansham, a displacement camp between Mosul and Arbil, the nearby capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.

Iraqi federal forces have almost completely encircled Mosul, whose east side they retook from the Islamic State group last month.

Four months into a huge offensive to reconquer the jihadists' last major stronghold in Iraq, they are now poised to launch an assault on the city's west bank.

Slightly smaller than the east side but densely populated, the west bank is thought to shelter around three quarters of a million people who have been living in siege-like conditions for weeks.

A smaller than expected number of people fled their homes when elite Iraqi forces punched into east Mosul three months ago but Grande said the aid community was planning for larger displacement from the west.

According to the UN, nearly 200,000 people have been displaced since the October 17 start of the operation to retake Iraq's second largest city.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that 46,000 of them have since returned to their homes.

"We expect as many as 250,000 civilians may leave western Mosul," Grande said Wednesday during her visit to Hasansham camp.

She said there were currently 20 displacement camps and emergency sites around the city and added that the UN and its partners were "rushing to construct new sites south of Mosul." </s> US-backed Iraqi forces moved closer on Wednesday to a town south of Mosul where aid groups and regional officials say Islamic State has executed dozens of prisoners.

A military statement said security forces advanced to the edge of Hammam al-Alil, a thermal water resort, after an elite unit breached the eastern limits of Mosul, the ultra-hardline group’s last major city stronghold in Iraq.

The battle that started on October 17th with air and ground support from a US-led coalition is shaping up as the largest in Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003.

Mosul still has a population of 1.5 million people, much more than any of the other cities captured by Islamic State two years ago in Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

The United Nations cited reports on Tuesday that Islamic State, also known as Isis, is attempting to displace Hammam al-Alil’s estimated population of 25,000 for use as human shields and protection against air and artillery strikes.

“We have grave concerns for the safety of these and the tens of thousands of other civilians who have reportedly been forcibly relocated by Isil (another name for Isis) in the past two weeks,” UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said.

The town, 15 km south of Mosul, had a pre-war population of 65,000, a local official said.

Aid organisations, local officials and Mosul residents have cited reports that Isis has executed dozens of people in Hammam al-Alil and barracks nearby on suspicion of planning rebellions in and around Mosul to aid the advancing troops.

Abdul Rahman al-Waggaa, a member of the Nineveh provincial council, told Reuters last week that most of the victims were former police and army members. The men were shot dead, he said, quoting the testimony of remaining residents of the villages and people displaced from the area.

The UN has said the Mosul offensive could trigger a humanitarian crisis and a possible refugee exodus if the civilians inside in Mosul seek to escape, with up to 1 million people fleeing in a worst-case scenario.

The International Organisation for Migration said nearly 21,000 people have been displaced since the start of the campaign, excluding thousands of villagers taken into Mosul by retreating jihadists who used them as human shields.

Elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) troops were the first to breach Mosul’s official boundary this week. They said on Tuesday they were in control of the state television station.

A CTS commander, Lieut Gen Abdul Ghani al-Assadi told reporters in Bartella, a village west of Mosul, that the unit will pause its advance on the eastern front because of bad weather.

“God willing the next stage will begin within hours. This depends on the weather,” he said.

A curfew had been imposed on the recaptured eastern suburb of Kokjali, he said, to protect residents from mortar bombs fired by the insurgents.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are also deployed on the eastern and northern fronts, and Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militias are attacking Islamic State west of Mosul.

The involvement of pro-Iranian militias is causing alarm in Turkey which has had troops deployed north of the city since last year to train and support Sunni Arab volunteers who also want to take part in the battle.

Turkey’s army has begun deploying tanks and other armoured vehicles to the town of Silopi near the Iraqi border. Turkish defence minister Fikri Isik said on Tuesday the move was related to the fight against terrorism and developments across the border.

Turkey says it has a responsibility to protect ethnic Turkmens and Sunni Arabs in the area around Mosul, once part of the Ottoman Empire. It fears both PKK militants and Shi’ite militias, which the Iraqi army has relied on in the past, will be used in the campaign and stoke ethnic bloodletting.

Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi told a news conference after a cabinet session in Baghdad on Tuesday that tensions with Turkey have eased in the last week, but warned that Iraq would respond to any “violation” of its territory. </s> The World Food Programme (WFP) has slashed food rations distributed to 1.4 million displaced Iraqis by 50 percent because of delays in payments from donor states.

The sharp cutbacks come at a time when a growing number of Iraqis flee the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

We escaped from [ISIL] in order to have a chance to live and now they have cut the aid. How are we supposed to live? Safa Shaker, displaced Iraqi

At least 160,000 people have been displaced since October when the Iraqi military, backed by Kurdish forces and Shia militias. launched a military campaign to recapture Mosul from the armed group.

WFP spokeswoman Inger Marie Vennize said the UN agency was talking to the United States - its biggest donor, Germany, Japan and others to secure funds to restore full rations.

"We have had to reduce [the rations] as of this month," she was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying.

"The 50 percent cuts in monthly rations affect over 1.4 million people across Iraq," she added.

The effect is already being felt in camps east of Mosul, ISIL's last major bastion in northern Iraq.

"They are giving an entire family the food supply of one person ... we want to go back home," said Omar Shukri Mahmoud at the Hassan Sham camp.

Safa Shaker, who fled with her extended family, said: "We are a big family and this ration is not going to be enough.

"We escaped from [ISIL] in order to have a chance to live and now they have cut the aid. How are we supposed to live?" she added.

Mosul is still home to nearly 1.5 million people, who are at risk of being caught up in brutal urban warfare.

An estimated 650,000 people live without potable water in the city and the UN has warned of a potential humanitarian crisis and a refugee exodus. </s> HAMAM AL-ALIL, Iraq -- U.S.-backed Iraqi forces launched a large-scale military operation on Sunday to dislodge Islamic State militants from the western half of Mosul city, a battle that is expected to be prolonged and difficult due to a densely packed civilian population and older, narrower streets.

In a briefed televised speech on state TV, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the operation, saying the government forces were moving to "liberate the people of Mosul from Daesh oppression and terrorism forever", using the Arabic acronym for IS.

Al-Abadi called on security forces to deal with civilians properly and respect human rights.

Plumes of smoke were seen rising into the sky early Sunday morning as U.S.-led coalition jets struck militant positions southwest of Mosul and militarized police fired artillery toward the city. Heavily armed police units were getting ready to move north with their armoured vehicles from a base just southwest of the city.

"This is zero hour and we are going to end this war, God willing," said Mahmoud Mansour, a police officer, as he prepared to move out.

The immediate objective of the operation was to take the villages on the southern outskirts of Mosul airport, a police spokesman told The Associated Press. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity in line with standard procedures.

Police units quickly moved into the village of Athba about three miles southwest of the city's airport, encountering only light resistance, according to an AP reporter on the scene. Separately, the army's 9th armoured division moved into the village of Bakhira, also southwest of the city, the Iraqi Ministry of Defence said.

Shortly after the announcement, the United Nations warned that hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside their houses "are at extreme risk" with dwindling fuel and food supplies and scare drinking water and electricity.

"The situation is distressing. People, right now, are in trouble," Lise Grande, Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, said in a statement. "We are hearing reports of parents struggling to feed their children and to heat their homes," Grande said.

Citing informants from inside the western side, the U.N. said nearly half of all food shops were closed and bakeries had shut down due to a lack of fuel and an inability to purchase costly flour. Prices of kerosene and cooking gas have skyrocketed and many of the most destitute families are burning wood, furniture, plastic or garbage for cooking and heating.

"Children and their families are starting to face critical shortages of safe drinking water," Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Representative in Iraq, was quoted as saying in the statement. "Three out of five people now depend on untreated water from wells for cooking and drinking as water systems and treatment plants have been damaged by fighting or run out of chlorine."

The humanitarian agencies were gearing up to aid 250,000 to 400,000 civilians who may flee due to fighting, the statement said. The U.N. estimates that about 750,000 civilians may be left in western Mosul.

The Commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, hailed the Iraqi forces in a statement as an "increasingly capable, formidable, and professional force."

"Mosul would be a tough fight for any army in the world, and the Iraqi forces have risen to the challenge," said Townsend. "They have taken the fight to the enemy and sacrificed their blood for the people of Iraq and the rest of the world."

Eastern Mosul was retaken from IS by Iraqi forces last month after a three-month battle, but the west of the city remains in the hands of the extremists. Unlike the east, much of the west is composed of old houses forming narrow alleyways, making the use of armoured vehicles more difficult and promising a tougher fight.

Iraqi special operations forces, regular army and federal police units are taking part in the offensive along with government-sanctioned paramilitary forces, made up mainly of Shiite militias, operating on the city's outskirts.

Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the last IS urban stronghold in the country, fell into the hands of the extremists in the summer of 2014, when the group captured large swaths of northern and western Iraq.

Associated Press writer Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad contributed to this report. </s> ERBIL, Iraq, April 4 (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Tuesday it is expanding camps for displaced people around Mosul, as air strikes resumed on Islamic State positions in Iraq's second largest city.

More than 300,000 people have fled Mosul since the start of the U.S.-backed campaign in October, the office of the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq said in a statement.

Mosul had a pre-campaign population of about a million and half, split more or less evenly between the sides lying east and west of the Tigris river that runs through the middle.

Iraqi forces captured the eastern side in January and in February launched a second phase to take the western side, with air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition.

They are now battling to take the northwestern part, but the civilian death toll has mounted in the densely populated Old City, where the militants are dug in amongst residents.

More people are expected to flee the fighting and camps for the displaced north and east of Mosul are expanding, the U.N. statement said.

Air strikes on the city by the Iraqi air force resumed on Tuesday as the sky cleared after several days of bad weather, the Iraqi military said.

A number of Islamic State commanders were killed in an air strike on a position in Hay al-Tanak, a stronghold of the group in the west of Mosul, the Iraqi military said in statement.

Among those killed were commanders in charge of booby traps, of Arab suicide fighters and child recruitment, the statement added, without identifying them by name.

Islamic State media outlets did not mention the strike.

The improved weather should also allow ground forces to resume their advance toward the Grand al-Nuri Mosque, where the militants' leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a "caliphate" nearly three years ago over parts of Iraq and Syria.

The current phase of the campaign is the most difficult as narrow alleyways in the densely populated old city limit the use of artillery, air power and armoured vehicles.

An explosion in western Mosul last month killed between 60 and 240 people, according to various accounts.

U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, flew into Iraq on Monday with the top U.S. general to get a first-hand assessment of the battle against Islamic State from U.S. commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders.

The trip comes as Trump examines ways to accelerate a campaign that U.S. and Iraqi officials say has so far largely succeeded in uprooting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. (Editing by Giles Elgood) </s> HAMMAM AL-ALIL CAMP, Iraq: The husband of Orouba Abdelhamid was killed in a rocket strike when Iraqi government forces arrived in her home city Mosul as part of the military campaign to expel Islamic State fighters.

The 31-year-old Orouba was then trapped at home for days as her district in western Mosul turned into a battle zone between the government and the militants defending their last stronghold

in Iraq. She eventually managed to flee with her three children.

"No one is left for me over there so I came here ... I cannot return to the house," she told Reuters, sitting in the tent she shares with her brother's family in the Hammam al-Alil camp, which is home to some 30,000 displaced people.

Orouba was eventually reunited with her brother in the camp after the two had had little contact since Islamic State overran Mosul in June 2014 and banned mobile phones under their extreme version of Sunni Islam.

Those who have fled Iraq's second largest city describe a gruelling journey, where in some instances entire neighbourhoods have left together, often at daybreak, sometimes under mortar shelling or air strikes.

Fathers covered their children's eyes, neighbours helped carry the disabled, and men were often separated from their wives to be questioned by the Iraqi army manning the checkpoints around the city.

Like many others, Gorha Mahmoud said she and her family walked for 48 hours in the rain and cold before reaching Hammam al-Alil. They had to wait a further 24 hours at the entrance gate as there was no tent for them at first.

In the camp, a semblance of normality has returned for the families. Children over six attend morning classes, women carry out domestic chores while men look for work and food.

"Here life is normal. The aid is plentiful and the people are nice," Orouba said.

The United Nations refugee agency said in March it had opened two new camps to host those fleeing the fighting in Mosul, adding 40,000 places to its existing facilities.

More than 302,000 people have left Mosul since the military campaign began in October, according to the International Organization for Migration. Around 30,000 people were displaced

Even worse, some 400,000 people are still trapped in western

Mahmoud Abu Mohamed, who lives in a tent around the corner from Orouba after also fleeing from Mosul with his family, said the government needed to restore water in the city and remove dangerous debris from the fighting before people would return.

"If the water returns, everyone will go back," he said. </s> As fighting continues between Iraqi forces and ISIL fighters, civilians have been fleeing the city in droves.

Mosul, Iraq - Last month, Iraqi forces resumed their assault on the city of Mosul, which has been under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS) since 2014.

The eastern side of the city was recaptured in a three-month offensive that ended in January, but the west, with its densely populated maze of narrow streets, is thought to pose a greater challenge.

Surrounded by a diverse array of Iraqi forces, the remaining ISIL fighters are digging in for a fight to the end, using car bombs, snipers and grenade-laden drones to slow the troops' advances.

Meanwhile, civilians have been fleeing Mosul in droves, with tens of thousands more expected to be displaced as fighting continues in the weeks ahead.
The United Nations announces expansion of civilian camps for people fleeing Mosul, following resumption of airstrikes on ISIL-held portions of the Iraqi city.