Alwaght- Latest News from Fallujah shows that terrorists are killing people who wants to flee or surrender and use them as human shields to obstruct Iraqi Forces advances.
Iraqi forces on Monday have lunched offensives while they besieged the city from months ago and now are carefully devising a plan to save civilians trapped in the urban area since January 2014, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ahmad Jamal, told Izvestiya daily.
Noting that one of the main goals of the military operation was “to minimize possible losses among the civilian population,” Jamal said that the active phase was preceded by surgical strikes on ISIS Terrorist’s position by the Iraqi Air Force.
“At the moment, the main difficulty lies in the fact that ISIS militants use residents as human shields,” Jamal said, adding “The greatest threat to the residents of the city comes first of all from ISIS militants whom the ordinary people have to deal with every day. It is no secret that extremists during their presence in Fallujah staged mass executions and made a number of other crimes against humanity.”
According to UN estimates, there are about 60,000 to 100,000 civilians remaining in Fallujah. People trapped in the city told USA TODAY that as the army advanced, terrorists imposed a curfew on civilians and moved people to the city center to use as a human shield. ISIS also prevented civilians from leaving the city and threatened to kill anyone attempting to escape.
On Sunday, the Iraqi government deployed at least 20,000 troops and Popular Mobilization Forces to combat extremists, and told residents to flee the city ahead of the operation, that was launched the following day.
