ISIS jihadists have acquired small anti-aircraft artillery pieces that can threaten low-flying planes, according to a report.
A US military spokesman in Baghdad described the weapons as a “significant threat” to coalition planes, CBS News reported Wednesday.
The revelation comes amid reports this week that the militant group has been using increasingly sophisticated drones to drop explosives on Iraqi forces with great accuracy.
Unmanned aerial vehicles also have been used by the extremists for surveillance to guide car bombs through Mosul’s narrow streets on their way to Iraqi troop positions.
US troops have new weapons to counter the terrorist drones — a gun that jams the radio waves between the drones and their controllers, officials told CBS news.
Federal police commander General Ali al Lami said his troops are constantly on the lookout.
“A car bomb can destroy a unit,” he told the network. “A truck bomb can destroy a brigade.”
Iraqi forces prepared for an assault on Mosul airport Wednesday after striking jihadist positions in a renewed offensive to retake the terror group’s stronghold in northern Iraq.
Heavily armed forces reinforced positions that were taken since a renewed push south of Mosul was launched Sunday as hundreds of civilians fled newly recaptured villages.
“Around 480 people displaced from Al-Yarmuk area are being transferred to liberated areas further south,” the federal police told Agence France-Presse.
Iraqi troops have retaken a key checkpoint on the main Baghdad highway south of Mosul and the village of Al-Buseif, which overlooks the airport and the south of the city.
There were no major operations near Mosul on Wednesday, with Iraq’s new interior minister visiting the village and the defense minister also expected to arrive on the front lines, AFP reported.
Senior US officials have estimated there were only 2,000 ISIS fighters defending west Mosul, suggesting the group had sustained heavy losses in the first four months of the operation.
The US-led coalition — which has provided air support and advisers on the ground — said before the Mosul offensive began that 5,000 to 7,000 jihadists had been holed up in the ravaged city.
AFP reporters saw US forces moving into Al-Buseif on Wednesday in convoys of large military vehicles.
The fate of about 750,000 civilians trapped in west Mosul was a major source of concern as Iraqi troops prepared for what many have predicted could be one of the bloodiest battles yet in the war against ISIS.
The health of many residents had been worsening for months under the rule of the so-called “Caliphate,” which ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed in a mosque near the same hospital almost three years ago.
“Even before the hospitals were closed, locals had to pay Daesh sums of money they couldn’t afford,” an employee at Al-Jamhuri hospital in west Mosul told AFP.
About 160,000 civilians have been displaced from the Mosul area since the start of the battle in October, according to UN officials.