Speaking to reporters after a trip to Europe, Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford listed recent gains leading up to the eventual battle to retake the key northern city.
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“We feel confident that we will be in a position to move forward fairly rapidly”, Obama said, vowing to fight “right at the heart of the ISIL operation in Mosul”.
Ahmed Al Assadi, the spokesman of the Hashed Al Shaabi – or the Popular Mobilisation – paramilitary force, also announced the operation.
U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in New York September 19, 2016. Those advances, he explained, include Iraqi forces bridging the Tigris River near Qayyarah and securing the airfield there.
Abadi in a news conference in Baghdad attend by Iraqi News, said, “We refuse dictate terms during our discussions with the International Monetary Fund and we put mechanisms and a plan to reform the economic system in Iraq”.
Clearing the town of militants would help the troops march closer to Mosul, some 60 miles away and the last major city held by Islamic State and its self-declared capital in the country, which American and Iraqi officials say will be liberated in a planned joint offensive before the end of the year.
He said he hoped there would be progress by the end of the year. It has been surrounded by Iraqi troops and militias allied to the government.
President Barack Obama, after meeting with Abadi yesterday in NY, said he expects a tough fight for the city of more than two million people, noting ISIL has “embedded itself deeply” within Mosul.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi made the announcement in a televised address on Tuesday in NY, where he is to attend the latest summit of the United Nations General Assembly.
In addition to the funding to support Mosul preparedness, USA funding will support UNHCR and other agencies’ efforts to provide assistance to the estimated 230,000 Iraqi refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey, including shelter, cash assistance, protection, and other forms of assistance.
“They will have all of the forces that they need and it will be a political decision by Prime Minister Abadi as to when operations actually are conducted”, Dunford said as he flew home from talks with USA allies in Europe. In neighboring Syria, the chaotic civil war continues to plague efforts to defeat IS extremists, but in Iraq, cooperation with Abadi’s forces has helped the US -led coalition wrest back half the territory that IS once held, according to the U.S.
It’s unclear yet if the forces are backed by US -led coalition airstrikes.
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Gen. Townsend estimated that between 3,000 and 4,500 Islamic State fighters remain in the city, along with some 1 million civilians. The group also controls the city of Tel Afar, west of Mosul towards the Syrian border.
