Mosul is the largest urban centre under the militants’ control, and had a pre-war population of nearly 2 million.
Advertisement
Iraq’s army is advancing from the south. In July it captured the Qayyara airfield, 60 km (35 miles) south of Mosul, which is to serve as the main staging post for the anticipated offensive.
But, after the loss of Fallujah and Ramadi, Mosul remains the sole-remaining Iraqi city under the group’s control and its loss would effectively end the group’s vision of an Islamic state in Iraq, although its insurgency would likely continue.
Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, was seized by Islamic State in a bloody offensive in mid-2014, as the terrorist movement managed to overrun major areas of western and northern Iraq.
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.
Peshmerga officer Sherzad Zajuli, speaking to Anadolu Agency on Monday, confirmed that Kurdish forces had wrested the villages of Al-Hasoodiyya, Kanhash al-Saghira and Kanhash al-Kabira from the grip of ISIL.
A Kurdish commander said that more than 5,000 troops were involved in the latest operation.
Last year, hundreds of insurgents fled to Afghanistan from neighboring Pakistan, where the military launched a campaign to clear militants from the lawless tribal regions in the country’s north.
“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.
In a massive offensive backed by U.S. air strikes Kurdish and Iraqi government troops advanced towards the city on Sunday. The bridge crosses the Grand Zab river that flows into the Tigris.
US -led coalition planes are supporting the operation and have destroyed a auto bomb, according to the security statement.
Advertisement
A Kurdish official, who declined to be named, told Reuters that the drive that began on Sunday was part of “shaping operations” to eventually launch an offensive on the city itself.
