Iraqi forces make first advance into Mosul, break through IS defence lines

World Monday 31/October/2016 20:41 PM
By: Times News Service
Iraqi forces make first advance into Mosul, break through IS defence lines

East of Mosul/Baghdad: Advancing Iraq troops broke through IS defence lines in an eastern suburb of Mosul on Monday, taking the battle for the insurgent stronghold to inside the city limits for the first time, a force commander said.
They made the gain as the offensive to recapture Mosul -- the largest military operation in Iraq since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 -- entered its third week.
Commanders had warned earlier that the battle for the city, the hardline militants' de facto capital in Iraq, could take weeks and possibly months.
Troops of the Iraqi army's Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) moved forward on Gogjali, an industrial zone on the eastern outskirts, on Monday after two weeks of fighting to clear surrounding areas of the insurgents.
They then reached Karama district, their first advance into the city itself, an officer said.
"They have entered Mosul," he said. "They are fighting now in Hay (district) Al Karama."
A Reuters correspondent in the village of Bazwaia saw plumes of smoke rising from a built-up area a few kilometres away which a commander said was the result of the clashes in Karama.
The fighting ahead is likely to be more difficult as civilians still live there, unlike most villages taken so far by the Iraqi forces which were emptied of their Christian population.
IS singled out religious minorities in northern Iraq, including Christians and Yazidis, for killing and eviction.
Their seizure of Mosul and surrounding towns effectively drove Christians from the area for the first time in two millennia.
The recapture of Mosul would mark the militants' effective defeat in the Iraqi half of the territory they had seized.
It is still home to 1.5 million residents, making it four of five times bigger than any other city they controlled in both Iraq and Syria.
"The battle of Mosul will not be a picnic," Hadi Al Amiri, leader of the Badr Organisation, the largest militia fighting with Iraqi government forces, said from the southern frontline. "We are prepared for the battle of Mosul even if it lasts for months."
Other military statements said five villages were taken north of Mosul, where Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are also deployed, while army units advanced in the south.
Iraqi security forces and Peshmerga fighters started the offensive against the hardline group on October 17, with air and ground support from a US-led coalition.
Militias joined the fighting on Saturday, aiming to cut the route between Mosul and Raqqa, IS's main stronghold in Syria.
IS militants has been fighting off the offensive with suicide car bombs, snipers and mortar fire.
They have also set oil wells on fire to cover their movements and displaced thousands of civilians from villages toward Mosul, using them as "human shields", UN officials and villagers have said.
"Scorched earth tactics employed by retreating ISIL (IS) members are having an immediate health impact on civilians, and risk long-term environmental and health consequences," the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
UN forecasts see up to 1 million people being uprooted by the fighting, which UN aid agencies said had so far forced about 17,500 people to flee -- a figure that excludes those taken into Mosul by the retreating militants.
IS said it killed 35 militia fighters and pro-government fighters in a suicide attack near Haditha, in the western Anbar province, a hotbed of the insurgency against US forces and the government that took over after the overthrow of Saddam. Iraqi officials did not confirm the attack.