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Mosul Offensive News
Iraqi Special Forces win back 3 districts in eastern Mosul

[Iran Press TV] Iraqi government forces have established full control over three more neighborhoods in the eastern quarter of djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
as they try to drive Takfiri
...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed...
ISIS bully boyz out of the northern city in joint operations with allied fighters and Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

On Friday, Iraqi Special Operations Forces managed to liberate the neighborhoods of Adl, al-E’lam and al-Ta’mim in the eastern part of Mosul, located some 400 kilometers north of the capital Baghdad, and raised the national Iraqi flag over a number of buildings there, Arabic-language al-Forat news agency reported.

Scores of ISIS members were killed and injured during the fierce exchanges of gunfire between government forces and the myrmidons.

The development came on the same day that pro-government fighters from Popular Mobilization Units, also known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha'abi, defused a boom-mobile in the strategic Tal Abtah region west of Mosul.

Additionally, the Iraqi Defense Ministry announced that Iraq's Air Force fighter jets had carried out a string of Arclight airstrikes against ISIS positions in the eastern and western flanks of Mosul, killing dozens of the Takfiris in the process.

Iraqi warplanes pounded a missile depot in Mosul’s eastern neighborhood of Rashidiya, before targeting a workshop for booby-trapping vehicles and manufacturing bombs near a train station in western Mosul.

Another ISIS position was bombarded in Mosul’s western al-Mansour district as well.

Separately, Iraqi jets, based on information from the Directorate General for Intelligence and Security, launched precision strikes against a ISIS arms depot in Qadisiyah district.

Iraqi militia defuse booby-trap combing Mosul’s Tal Abta

Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Al-Hashd al-Shaabi troops defused on Friday a booby-trapped vehicle while combing the town of Tal Abta, west of Mosul, which they captured on Thursday.

The militia is preparing to liberate other areas surrounding the strategic town, its spokesperson, Ahmed al-Assadi stated Friday.

On Thursday, Al-Hashd sl-Shaabi completed the liberation of Tal Abta, the only remaining area to consummate a siege on the town of Tal Afar, a major ISIS stronghold and a vital spot on the group’s supply lines from Syria.

The militia’s media service said the victory came after intense fights with the extremist group that left a number of militants dead.

Al-Hashd al-Shaabi, which turned via a parliament vote last month from a voluntary popular militia to an Iraqi national force, has been actively fighting against ISIS by the side of the Iraqi government forces. The militia has been mostly active in the southwestern areas of Mosul since operations to retake the city launched in mid October. Government forces, meanwhile, are still struggling to liberate the eastern section of the city and have said they had become in control over at least 50 percent of that region.

Iraqi warbirds hits ISIS targets in eastern Mosul

Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi army jets bombed on Friday Islamic State locations in eastern and western Mosul, military intelligence said in a statement.

The airstrike destroyed ammunition stashes in Rashidiya, Qadisiya and al-Zohour districts, said the statement. A booby-trapping factory and a headquarter containing suicide bombers were also destroyed at al-Mansour district and near a train station in western Mosul.

Iraqi government forces, backed by US-led air forces and popular militias, have been on a major campaign to liberate Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, from ISIS militants since October.

Iraqi ground forces are struggling to liberate the eastern side of Mosul moving toward the Tigirs River. ISIS maintains some strongholds in the west nea Syrian borders, but Iraqi government and militia commanders say they had blocked the group’s supply and escape routes to and from Syria.

Iraqi forces capture 28 districts in Mosul

Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi troops have recaptured 28 districts in eastern Mosul, the Counter Terrorism Service said on Friday, saying that as a seven-week old campaign to clear the city from Islamic State (ISIS) militants ended its first phase.

CTS commander, Abdul Ghani al-Assadi, stated government forces have become in control of 28 districts in eastern Mosul, noting that operations were running “as planned” with an air cover provided by Iraqi and international coalition fair forces.

The CTS said in a statement on Friday that the forces recaptured the districts of al-Adl and al-Taamim in the east. Security sources were quoted earlier on the same day as saying that the forces recaptured the districts of Nawafel, Simyak and Abbassiy in the north.

Military and police commanders said recently that government forces became in control of nearly 50 percent of the eastern section of Mosul. ISIS remains in control of most of the western region adjacent to the group’s strongholds in Syria, but Iraqi security commanders and Al-Hashd al-Shaabi militia leaders say they had managed to cut ISIS’s supply and escape routes to and from Syria.

Commanders, however, admit fierce resistance from ISIS combatants who rely on booby-traps and suicide attacks. Iraqi troops withdrew one day ago from recently-recaptured districts under intense, fatal assaults from the militants. They also attribute occasional slowdowns in operations to anxiousness to ensure the safety of civilians stranded within the battlefield.

Iraqi forces destroy car bomb factories in Mosul

BAGHDAD: Iraqi forces captured a neighborhood in east Mosul on Friday, pushing deeper into Daesh’s Iraqi stronghold and destroying three manufacturing sites for car bombs used in waves of suicide attacks, the campaign’s commander said.

Lt.-Gen. Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah said Counter Terrorism Service forces spearheading the seven-week operation to retake Mosul seized the Tamim district halfway between the city’s eastern edge and the River Tigris running through its center.
The elite troops, part of a US-backed, 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi forces, have been fighting street battles with the militants and now control around half of the city’s eastern neighborhoods.

But progress has been slow as they have faced counterattacks by the militant fighters, who launched hundreds of the suicide car bombs and mortars and snipe fire attacks and used the city’s million residents as human shields. Yarallah also said in a statement that air strikes by Iraqi F-16 jets destroyed three production plants making car bombs in Mosul and three weapons stores. He gave no further details.

Iraq launched the operation to recapture Mosul on Oct. 17. Defeating Daesh in the largest city under its control would deal a major blow to its self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria, and its ambitions to govern territory.

In Iraq, it has already been forced to retreat from Tikrit, Ramadi and Falluja, although its ultra-hard-line fighters still hold large parts of remote regions near the Syrian border.
Posted by: Fred 2016-12-10
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=475356