Story highlights Dozens of children and civilians are among victims the battle for Mosul produces every single day

ISIS' desperate tactic as fighters advance to Mosul is to lob mortars indiscriminately toward government-controlled areas

Mosul, Iraq (CNN) Omar Ali stands outside his home in eastern Mosul weeping. The young father's sense of relief after being liberated from ISIS has been replaced by a feeling of unbearable loss.

Only a day earlier his 18-month-old daughter Amira was there on the pavement in the Zahraa neighborhood playing with relatives when a mortar round landed nearby. Shrapnel tore through the air and the child's skull. Amira was killed instantly. Her two cousins were seriously injured.

"Look world, this is my daughter," Omar Ali cries. "What did she do wrong? She's gone. She was just playing. She's gone from me and she's my only child."

He holds a photograph of Amira dressed in a black sweater with white hearts, her cherub face looking up rather than at the camera.

She is young and innocent like so many of the dozens of civilian victims the street-to-street battle for Mosul produces every single day.

18-month-old Amira Ali was killed Wednesday when an ISIS mortar round landed near her home in a liberated area of eastern Mosul.

Read More