Kurdish Peshmerga forces are within five miles (eight kilometers) of Mosul, commanders said Sunday, after days of fighting and sweeping territorial gains in the operation to free the key Iraqi city from ISIS control.
A coalition of 100,000 troops have been closing in on Mosul since Monday, liberating surrounding communities village by village and making quicker-than-expected gains.
The coalition vastly outnumbers its opponent. No more than 5,000 ISIS fighters are in Mosul, a US military official said, although the terror group’s supporters put the number at 7,000.
Officials and analysts say that entering Mosul is likely to kick off intense street fighting as coalition forces try to retake what has become the cultural capital of ISIS’ envisaged caliphate, or Islamic state.
Latest developments
- Turkey says it provided troops, weaponry to assist the Peshmerga in Bashiqa.
- ISIS executed about 40 people celebrating the “liberation” of their villages by Iraqi forces, a Mosul official said.
- Dozens of ISIS militants were killed in the Peshmerga push to Mosul’s outskirts
- Two Christian towns – Hamdaniya and Bartella – were freed over the weekend, Iraqi military officials say
- Hundreds of people near al-Qayyara were affected by a fire at a disused sulphur factory, sources said
- ISIS launched a dawn attack south of Kirkuk city Sunday after an attack there Friday
- US Defense Secretary Ash Carter met with the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani in Irbil
MOSUL: Your Google search questions answered
‘Freed’ and then forgotten
Two Peshmerga factions linked up after surrounding the empty town of Bashiqa, about eight miles east of Mosul, with the support of coalition air power, the Peshmerga’s general command said in a statement Sunday.
They were able to cordon off eight villages in an area measuring approximately 38 square miles (100 square kilometers) and secure a significant stretch of the Bashiqa-Mosul highway to limit ISIS’ freedom of movement, commanders said. Hourslong clashes left dozens of ISIS militants dead, they said.
Turkish troops supported the Peshmerga in the battle, and Turkey has provided them with artillery, tanks and Firtina howitzer vehicles, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said, according to state-run news agency Anadolu.
With this weekend’s gains have come pockets of horrific losses. ISIS executed about 40 people who were celebrating the apparent liberation of their villages by Iraqi forces, a Mosul City Council official said Sunday, citing local sources.
