The PMF officially reports to the Shia-led government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi who announced on October 17 the start of the offensive on Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, with the backing of a US-led coalition.
Advertisement
“They killed 20 people in front of me”, said one 19-year-old from the village of Safina, who was held for three days in Hamam al-Ali before his family escaped at night, walking for days before reaching the Iraqi security forces.
The rebels said this counter-attack would come.
The images of Iraqi forces opening up the subterranean network reveal how ISIS militants lived in tiny spaces in their bid to maintain control of the city.
Abdulrahman al Wagga, a member of the Nineveh provincial council, told CNN the security forces had taken the town of al Shura, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of Mosul, and had evacuated 5,000 to 6,000 civilians.
The fighters killed 190 former security forces Wednesday at the Ghazlani military base on the southern edge of Mosul, while 42 civilians were killed at another base for refusing to join IS.
Nearly 500 people have been killed and 2,000 injured since government forces, backed by Russian air strikes, intensified an assault on the east of the city a month ago.
The U.S. -led coalition continues to support the Iraqi operation to liberate Mosul’s 1.4 million people, he said.
He also reiterated Russian denials that its warplanes were responsible for an attack on a school in Idlib province that the United Nations children’s agency says killed 22 children and six teachers.
Syrian state television reported the assault, saying “the army has foiled an attempt by terrorists to attack Aleppo city from several axes with suicide bomb attacks and has inflicted losses on them”.
As the stalling continues, the Shiite militias, collectively known as Hashid Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Forces, announced on Friday that they are launching an offensive on Mosul in “a few days or hours”.
A short distance away in Mosul, ISIL’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi walked into a mosque two years ago to declare a caliphate.
The anti-terror air operations also destroyed four vehicles and five motorbikes, the statement said.
Despite the heavy casualties, the jihadists still think they can retain control over Mosul, Votel said, because “some of their fighters don’t understand what is taking place around them”.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said at least 15 civilians, including two children, had been killed, and more than 100 wounded in rebel fire on western Aleppo.
There is a sense of willingness from Baghdad and Ankara to come to an agreement that will grant Turkey a role in the fight for Mosul and possibly beyond, the USA defense official said.
Barzani added that “we have been waiting for too long, we thought that after 2003 there would be a real new beginning for a democratic Iraq”.
The International Organization for Migration reported the Mosul operation had displaced 16,566 people as of Friday. Camps have been set up to accommodate an expected flood of desperate families.
If local fighters in Mosul can be persuaded to drop their allegiance to Daesh, there is a chance that the battle can be brought to a more speedy conclusion, and that could have major implications for the future of Iraq.
Advertisement
Special forces commanders said the operation was proceeding as planned, but that they were waiting for forces in the south to advance further before resuming their push toward the country’s second largest city, which fell to IS in 2014.
