The Islamic State has controlled Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul for the past two years.
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Civilians flee villages outside Mosul the day after Iraqi Kurdish forces launch an operation east of the Islamic State-held city in Iraq on Monday, Aug. 15, 2016. It said the US -led coalition is supporting the operation with airstrikes, one of which destroyed a vehicle bomb. Clouds of black smoke could be seen at a distance, possibly tires or other items set on fire by the militants to obstruct the planes’ visibility.
Mosul is the largest urban center under the militants’ control, with a pre-war population of almost 2 million.
The preparation for the offensive on Mosul “is approaching the final phase”, Brett McGurk, the United States envoy to the coalition fighting the militant group, said in Baghdad on Thursday. South of Mosul, Iraqi army forces are working to clear villages around a recently recaptured air base.
“Around 150 square kilometers of land was liberated, and the enemy forces were heavily defeated”, according to a statement from the Kurdish General Peshmerga Command.
“Fourteen militants were killed in the airstrikes”, he said.
A journalist working for local satellite channel Kurdistan TV was also killed when a mortar round struck the peshmerga convoy he was travelling in on Sunday.
Iraq’s leaders have promised to retake the northern city this year. The bridge crosses the Grand Zab river that flows into the Tigris. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi confirmed that the future is to draw closer to the final phase of fighting.
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Planning for the take-over has a decided humanitarian consideration to it, per USA envoy Brett McGurk. This would increase the 3.4 million who have already been forced from their homes in Iraq since fighting began which the ICRC has labeled a “humanitarian problem”.
