Hungry, Thirsty and Bloodied in Battle to Retake Mosul From ISIS - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/18/world/middleeast/iraq-mosul-islamic-state.html?emc=edit_th_20161219&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=
After two months, the battle to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State has settled into a grinding war of attrition. The front lines have barely budged in weeks. Casualties of Iraqi security forces are so high that American commanders heading the United States-led air campaign worry that they are unsustainable. Civilians are being killed or injured by Islamic State snipers and growing numbers of suicide bombers.
As the world watches the horrors unfolding in Aleppo, Syria, where government forces and allied militias bombed civilians and carried out summary executions as they retook the last rebel-held areas, a different tragedy is transpiring in Mosul. Up to one million people are trapped inside the city, running low on food and drinking water and facing the worsening cruelty of Islamic State fighters.