| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| Mosul Offensive News |
| 2016-12-14 |
| 19 die in ISIS counterattack near Baawiza Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) An Iraqi army soldier and 18 militants were killed on Tuesday when Iraqi army forces fought off an attack by Islamic State combatants north of Mosul, a statement said. The attack targeted army locations on Baawiza, and assailants used light guns and a booby-trapped car driven by a suicide fighter, according to Brigadier General Nizar Idris from the 16th division . “Iraqi forces, backed directly by international coalition air forces, managed to thwart the attack,” said Idris. He said one soldier and 18 militants were killed in the attack, while three armored vehicles belonging to the group were killed. Iraqi government forces, backed by tribal militias and US-led air forces, have been leading a military campaign to retake Mosul from ISIS since October. Iraqi government forces have liberated almost 50 of the eastern side of the city, military officials say. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Monday during a visit to Mosul’s Hammam al-Alil that two thirds of Nineveh have been retaken from ISIS. Government forces are eyeing the eastern shore of the Tigris River, which cuts through Mosul, so as to consummate the liberation of the eastern region. ISIS remains in control of several areas of the western section, which is adjacent to its strongholds in Syria, but Al-Hashd al-Shaabi forces are reporting daily advances towards liberating ISIS locations in that region. Also on Tuesday, Al-Hashd al-Shaabi troops said they had liberated the village of Ashwah, brought down some of Islamic State militants’ defenses and killed a number of the extremist group’s members near Tal Afar, west of Mosul. ISIS, meanwhile, claimed several attacks on al-Hashd during the same day. Al-Hashd media service said it carried out successful offensives on ISIS in ِAshwah village, southwest of the strategic ISIS stronghold of Tal Afar. It said two booby-trapped cars were destroyed before attacking the troops which moved 200 meters away from the village’s center. ISIS Amaq news agency said, meanwhile, that militants carried out suicide attacks against al-Hashd in Ashwah and Tal Askaa, and targeted a bulldozer run by the militia in al-Sharaea village. The agency made no mention of fatalities among al-Hashd. 6 districts in east Mosul targeted Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) There are only six districts left to announce full Iraqi security control over the eastern section of Mosul, the army’s Counter Terrorism Service said Tuesday, noting that 50 ISIS militants were killed in operations over the past few days. CTS commander Abdul Wahab al-Saedi said in statements that his forces had so far recaptured 32 districts from ISIS since operations to retake the city launched in October, adding that troops were advancing in three other neighborhoods. “Our forces have managed to liberate significant and critical parts of the eastern shore of Mosul, and there are only six districts left before announcing the eastern section fully free from ISIS.” CTS troops are now less than two kilometers from the eastern shore of the Tigris River, Saedi unveiled, adding that US-led air forces continue to bomb the extremist group’s remaining locations in the east. “Operation ‘We Are Coming, Nineveh’ will soon see the opening of new fronts as part of new strategies prepared by the Joint Operations Command. They will paralyze ISIS’s most vital weapon in Mosul: civilians held as human shields,” Saedi stated Sami al-Aridy, another senior CTS commander, said in statements that 50 ISIS militants were killed during operations that led to the recapture of eastern Mosul’s district of al-Falah two days ago. Dozens reported casualties in double car bomb attack in Mosul Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) A police officer at Nineveh Police revealed on Tuesday, that a double car bomb explosion in eastern Mosul, left dozens of casualties. Major Iyad Ziad said in a press statement, “The ISIS terrorists attacked security forces in al-Zohour area, in eastern Mosul, using two booby-trapped vehicles.” “The explosion of the two booby-trapped vehicles resulted in the killing and wounding of dozens of civilians, as well as 7 of security forces,” Ziad added. Meanwhile, media officials with the Ministry of defense quoted Commander of the Counter-Terrorism forces, Abdel Wahab al-Saedi, as saying that less than 2 kilometers are separating between security forces and the bridges of Mosul. Iraqi forces capture 2 more areas in Mosul Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) We Are Coming, Nineveh Operations Command announced on Tuesday, that the Counter-Terrorism forces freed two neighborhoods, in the eastern side of Mosul, from the ISIS control. Commander of Operations, Lieutenant General Abdel Amir Yarallah, said in a press statement, “Forces from the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) liberated the neighborhoods of al-Falah al-Oula and al-Falah al-Thaneya, in the eastern side of Mosul, as well as raising Iraqi flag over their buildings.” “Security forces also inflicted heavy human and material losses on the enemy,” Yaralla added. Joint security forces, backed by Army Aviation and international coalition, continue liberating the city of Mosul from the ISIS control, after Prime Minister Haider Abadi announced launching the battle to liberate Mosul in October 2016. Iraqi militia clearing border area with Syria (Reuters) Iraqi Shi’ite forces fighting Islamic State west of Mosul aim to clear a large strip of land on the border with Syria to prevent the militants melting into the remote desert region and using it as a base for counter attacks, a spokesman said on Tuesday. The Popular Mobilisation fighters – mainly Shi’ite, Iranian-backed paramilitary groups who form part of a wider Iraqi force waging the eight-week Mosul campaign – have deployed west of the city to cut the route to Islamic State-held territory in Syria. They have taken an air base south of the town of Tal Afar, about 60 km (40 miles) west of Mosul, and linked up with Kurdish peshmerga fighters to seal off the town’s western flank. Jafaar Hussaini said the Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of the Shi’ite armed groups, would advance further west to clear the border region where he said the militants had hidden many weapons stores for future use. “The key objective is to … make sure that the terrorists lose the ability to regroup and launch counter attacks against advancing forces,” said Hussaini, speaking by telephone from a desert area near Tal Afar. Kata’ib Hezbollah is one of the two main Shi’ite groups fighting west of Mosul. A spokesman for the Badr militia, the other group, said it was targeting villages around Tal Afar to “surround Daesh (Islamic State) and tighten the noose around them”. While the army advance in east Mosul, where soldiers have been constrained by street-by-street fighting and a built-up urban battlefield, Hussaini said progress in the western region was slow because the Popular Mobilisation forces had to clear dozens of villages scattered over a wide area. The forces are still 60 km from the frontier with Syria, he said. “We are targeting full control of the desert areas along the Syrian border”. Defeating Islamic State in Mosul, the largest city under its control in Syria or Iraq, would deal a heavy blow to its self-styled caliphate covering parts of both countries, and could see it return to more covert militant operations. Clearing the remote border region, which has long been a stronghold of the ultra-hardline Sunni militants, would make it more difficult for them to continue operating in northern Iraq. FOOD AND FUEL SHORTAGES Since the Popular Mobilisation forces closed off Mosul from Syria, residents in Islamic State-held districts of the city say fresh food has become scarce and prices have soared. Fuel prices have also risen, leading aid groups to warn of increasing winter hardship for the 1 million residents. “The city has never seen these prices,” a resident from the west side of the city, which is still completely under Islamic State control, told Reuters by telephone. “For a barrel of heating fuel the price has reached a million dinars ($850) – it used to be sold for 150,000 dinars,” he said, adding that food prices had risen four or five fold, despite efforts by the militants to punish traders they accuse of hiking prices purely for profit. One trader said that no fresh fruit or vegetables other than potatoes and onions had reached the city in the past week. “Residents are worried how they can get bread. If the siege continues at this level many people will die from lack of food,” he said. In the east of the city, where Iraq’s elite Counter Terrorism Services have made slow progress in a grueling fight, some civilians fled the front lines and sought sanctuary in areas now under army control. “We are very happy even though we have left behind us everything we own. The house, the car and our possessions,” said one resident of Muthanna district, who escaped with his family to stay with a relative in the nearby Zahra neighborhood. “What’s important is that we escaped death and hell”. He said many people in Muthanna had been killed. “An explosive-rigged car blew up in front of one of the houses, which collapsed on top of the residents. There was a family of seven inside, including three children,” he said. “We worked for two days to dig out the bodies”. 5K ISIS effectives remain in Mosul [ARA News] Erbil – The US-coalition estimates that there are still 3,000 to 5,000 ISIS fighters inside Mosul. “3,000 to 5,000 is probably still accurate. At the start of the campaign, we estimated somewhere between at the low end 3,500, at the high end, about 6,000. By our calculations we think we have killed or badly wounded over 2,000. So if you do the math, that’s still 3,000-5,000,” Lieutenant General Stephen J. Townsend, who leads the coalition forces against ISIS on the ground, told a press conference in the city of Qayyarah. Furthermore, the coalition general denied that there is a stalemate in Mosul. “I don’t think it suggests anything about a stalemate. This is a major urban area. Any army on the planet, to include the United States Army, would be challenged by this fight. And the Iraqi army has come back from near defeat two years ago, and now they’re attacking this major city, 400 kilometers from Baghdad,” he added. Mosul is the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq. The group took over the city in June 2014, and immediately afterward announced its self-proclaimed Caliphate. On October 17, the Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga launched a major operation to liberate Mosul city and its surroundings. According to military sources, more than 2,200 ISIS militants have been killed in the operation so far. In the meantime, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who visited Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region this week, said that the security forces haven taken losses in Mosul. The UN Iraq Mission said that at least 1,959 members of the Iraqi security forces have been killed since the launch of the anti-ISIS Mosul operation on 17 October in all of Iraq. “The Iraqi Security Forces have been and are fighting hard. As a consequence of that, they have taken losses and they are our comrades-in-arms over the years. So our hearts go out to them, to their families,” Secretary Carter said. “And at the same time we are constantly helping them to reset their forces after they carry out an operation. That’s one of the roles we play here. We’re in an enabling role. We do equipping, logistics, sustainment.” “We help them with their own medical system so that they can treat their casualties, with mobility as well as all of the awesome military power of the United States, air power, artillery, and so forth, so that they can have battlefield success with minimal losses,” he added. “But there still are significant losses because it’s a hard fight,” he concluded. Moreover, the coalition says that they have killed prominent ISIS jihadist leaders. “A significant part of their leadership has been killed. And the rest of it, knowing that they’re being hunted, are therefore forced to behave like hunted men. And that by itself also adds a benefit in the sense that their freedom to communicate, their freedom to move, their freedom to instill confidence in their forces is also reduced as we wipe out some of them, because the rest of them have to lie lower,” US Defence Secretary Carter said. “I’ll just add that so as the secretary said, we’re continually striking his command and control and key leaders daily. And we see that in our intelligence reporting that it’s affecting his life,” Lieutenant General Stephen J. Townsend. “And Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi probably wishes he had more direct command and control over his formation than he does right now. He’s trying to find ways to regain effectiveness. So we have to constantly stay after this every day of the fight to eventually win. And we will win,” he stated. Supported by the US-led coalition, the Iraqi forces have so far captured some 28 neighborhoods in the war-torn city since the launch of Mosul operation, forcing the Islamic State back towards the downtown core. Informed sources inside Mosul told ARA News that the Iraqi forces currently control approximately 50% of Mosul city, beside tightening the siege on the ISIS-held downtown districts. ISIS stops Iraqi forces with destroyed bridges [AlArabiya] ISIS blew up the Khosr river bridge east of Mosul in an attempt to halt the progress of Iraqi forces coming in from the recently liberated Al-Falah neighborhood as they head towards ISIS-held Hay AlSukkar. Iraqi forces, however, reported the stopping of battles in Eastern Mosul – announcing the completing of the first phase of taking back the city. Saturday, Iraq’s joint operations command that counter-terrorism forces regained control of 31 neighborhoods on the left coast of the city of Mosul. They continue to advance in three other neighborhoods after inflicting heavy losses on ISIS during recent battles. The joint operations’ command also said that their forces are less than two kilometers away from Mosul’s bridges, adding that the coalition’s air force continues to destroy ISIS gatherings in east Mosul. |
| Posted by:badanov |