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Iraqis find bomb factory, tunnels on long road to Mosul
[Ynet] Iraqi forces explored a network of tunnels and uncovered a bomb-making facility on Thursday in a village near djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
that was recently retaken from the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group, offering a glimpse of the challenge they will face as they move closer to the city.

Ten days into the offensive, the special forces are still at least 4 miles (6 kilometers) east of the city and have faced stiff resistance, with IS firing mortars and machine guns, and sending armored suicide truck bombs trundling across the arid plains.

Once inside the small, sparsely populated villages that ring Mosul, Iraqi forces must contend with explosive booby-traps and hidden snipers. The fortifications are expected to grow even more lethally daunting once they enter Iraq's second-largest city.

The turbans captured Mosul in a matter of days in 2014, and have had more than two years to build up its defenses and brutally root out any internal opposition. The operation to retake the northern city is expected to take weeks, if not months.
Posted by: trailing wife 2016-10-29
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=471589