Casualties mount as Iraqi troops advance in IS-held Mosul

Now the iraqi people missing uncle Saddam so much than ever.

Mosul's a big dense city, and a lot of ground soldiers dying fighting street by street, instead of just dropping bombs from the safety of 10,000 feet in the air. RIP to the ground soldiers - the whole world appreciate your efforts trying to preserve Mosul as much as possible, risking your lives rather than blow it up into the stone age

Also, to the 200 civilians killed or wounded

how many killed vs. how many wounded

how many casualties due to the coalition vs how many due to ISIS

Now the iraqi people missing uncle Saddam so much than ever.

Well, not the Kurds, at least. The Kurds love their semi-autonomy, electing their own President and Parliament, their own military, running their own affairs. And definitely not the Shiites, who make up the majority of Iraqis - they now run the government in the mostly peaceful southern half of Iraq

how many casualties due to the coalition vs how many due to ISIS

Does it matter to the civilians?

Not to the civilians - but at least we know where the blame goes, like when everything is getting blamed to terrorists

During the Aleppo operation the West was calling for a ceasefire and a "diplomatic solution"

Why are there no calls for the same now?

Partly political, partly because ISIS doesn't have nor believe in having UN diplomats (who are the Iraqis gonna talk with?), and partly because the government is not using bombing as their main weapon but rather small arms fire

Both weapons kill civilians, but with small arms fire, the civilians at least have a chance - while using weapons of mass destruction, that's pretty much just hoping no civilians are in the impact radius

Small arms fighting get more soldiers dead, but it's the price they pay for giving civilians a better chance

Hopefully ISIS and the rest of Al Qaeda are defeated so the middle east can see a little bit of peace and actually have a future.

Small arms fighting get more soldiers dead, but it's the price they pay for giving civilians a better chance

Especially these soldiers are so called native troops, or more precisely "colonial troops". The more important thing is white sahibs are in safety and that's why they can preach what is the right way of conduct of war and what is not.

Small arms fighting get more soldiers dead, but it's the price they pay for giving civilians a better chance

True.

But in which case Aleppo, or Mosul, was there a greater reliance on ground troops vs. airpower.

And how do you know this Mr. lostrune2?

Embedded reporters on both sides