Kids killed by ISIS car bombs and maimed by sniper fire as sick jihadis launch desperate last stand in Mosul
Youngsters find themselves in the firing line as Iraqi forces battle to push ISIS out of the city's western half
YOUNG children are the final targets of sadistic ISIS snipers as the terror group faces oblivion in Iraq.
Iraqi and Kurdish forces are on the brink of pushing the fanatics from Mosul – its last toehold in what was once a vast territory.
But even as the group’s death rattle sounds, it is inflicting pain and suffering on the youngsters who know nothing but war.
One doctor in the Al-Mamon district hospital has been treating kids picked off by the rifles of sadistic snipers.
Pointing to his latest casualty, he said: “This little boy was brought in today.
most read in news
“He has been snipered in the hand and has lost of a lot of blood.”
His father sits beside his injured son crying.
He weeps: “They shot my son…[But] they killed my daughter, they shot her when she was fleeing towards the Iraqi forces.”
“I have had to bury outside this hospital [and] my son now no longer has his twin sister”
As the operation to liberate Western Mosul - which started on February 19th - has gone on, the mass of civilians still trapped have become cannon fodder for ISIS sharp-shooters.
The doctor continues: “We get between fifty to a hundred of these cases a day and many of them are children who have been injured by snipers, mortars and car bombs”
“We have only five doctors and it is not enough, we need more, and more supplies to treat all these victims.”
A local Iraqi journalist called Ammar says even babies have become targets for the Islamists wreaking misery in the tiny pocket of Mosul they still hold.
Showing a video on his phone he says: “Look at this. This was one of the first days of the operation.
“This father had to bury his new born son after their house was targeted by a car bomb. The baby was only a few weeks old.
“ISIS don’t care who they kill. Many children have died many more are likely to die before it is over.”
Iraqi forces have faced stiff resistance since launching a counter offensive against ISIS in the middle of October.
Five months later and the group still hold a sizeable portion of western Mosul.
By January troops had cleared the eastern half of the city, but separated by the great River Tigris, they found resistance on the western half more stubborn.
Almost 200,000 civilians are thought to have fled the city since the western Mosul offensive began.
But many thousands more remain trapped in the pocket of resistance and remain in caught in the crossfire.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368