Kurdish forces open new front on Islamic
State capital Mosul
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[August 16, 2016]
By Maher Chmaytelli and Saif Hameed
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Kurdish Peshmerga
forces on Monday said they had secured a river crossing point enabling
them to open a new front against Islamic State and further tighten their
grip on the militants' capital Mosul.
Backed by air strikes from the U.S.-led coalition, Kurdish fighters
reached Kanhash, the western side of the Gwer bridge, the target of an
offensive that started on Sunday.
The militants damaged the bridge, across the Grand Zab river and to the
southeast of Mosul, two years ago as they swept through northern and
western Iraq. Repairing the bridge would allow Peshmerga and other
anti-IS forces to move toward Mosul from a new front.
"Control over Kanhash Heights give the Peshmerga strategic advantage
over nearby enemy positions and the main road linking Mosul," tweeted
Masrour Barzani, the head of the Kurdistan Region Security Council.
"This successful operation will tighten the grip around ISIL's
stronghold Mosul," he added, using another acronym of IS.
About 150 square kms (58 square miles) were taken from the militants
along the Grand Zab which flows into the Tigris, Kurdish officials said.
The Iraqi army and the Peshmerga forces of the Kurdish self-rule region
are gradually taking up positions around Mosul, 400 km (250 miles) north
of the capital Baghdad.
It was from Mosul's Grand Mosque in 2014 that Islamic State leader Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a "caliphate" spanning regions of Iraq and
Syria.
With a pre-war population of nearly 2 million, it is the largest urban
center under the militants' control and its fall would mark the
effective defeat of Islamic State in Iraq, according to Prime Minister
Haider al-Abadi, who has said he aims to retake it this year.
The Iraqi army is trying to close in 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.
"Noose tightening around #ISIL terrorists: #Peshmerga advancing east of
#Mosul, #ISF shoring up south near #Qayyara,"
tweeted Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition fighting the
militant group in a comment on the Kurdish offensive.
The militants were using suicide car bombs and mortar rounds to try to
slow the Kurds' advance, said Saif Hameed, a Reuters correspondent who
covered the offensive on Sunday.
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Military vehicles of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces are seen on the
southeast of Mosul , Iraq, August 14, 2016. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
"At the sixth village we entered, we received the usual incoming fire
and the gunner was firing back ... mortars started to land on our right
every three minutes," said Hameed, who was moving in a Peshmerga armored
truck with a group of journalists.
"Suddenly one of the men who was anxiously watching through the
narrow, shattered bulletproof glass shouted and all eyes turned to
the left," Hameed said. "It was a car bomb and it was speeding
toward us."
"The gunner opened fire from the turret and it vanished. We didn't
know where it went. As we retreated from the village, we were told
it exploded elsewhere."
IS said in a statement on its Amaq news service that two car bombs
driven by suicide fighters were detonated in one of the villages to
block advancing Kurdish forces, causing casualties among the
Peshmerga.
Authorities in autonomous Kurdistan gave no toll for the fighting,
other than confirming on Sunday the death of a Kurdish TV cameraman
and the injury of another journalist.Preparations for the offensive
on Mosul were nearing the final phase, McGurk told reporters during
a visit to Baghdad on Thursday. He said the planning included
considerations for humanitarian aid to uprooted civilians.
Up to one million people could be driven from their homes in
northern Iraq, once fighting intensifies around Mosul, posing "a
massive humanitarian problem", the International Committee of the
Red Cross forecast last month.
More than 3.4 million people have already been forced by conflict to
leave their homes across Iraq, taking refuge in areas under control
of the government or in the Kurdish region.
(Editing by Richard Balmforth)
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