Forces advance on Mosul and Raqa
IRAQI Kurdish forces have seized the town of Bashiqa near Mosul from Islamic State, an official said yesterday, as US-backed militia forces advanced on the jihadists’ Syrian stronghold Raqa.
Capturing Bashiqa would be one of the final steps in securing the eastern approaches to Mosul, three weeks into an offensive by Iraqi forces to retake the country’s second city.
The town was under the “complete control” of Kurdish peshmerga forces, Jabbar Yawar, the secretary-general of the Kurdish regional ministry responsible for the fighters, said “Our forces are clearing mines and sweeping the city.”
An AFP correspondent on the outskirts of Bashiqa said clashes were ongoing, with three airstrikes hitting the town and gunfire and an explosion heard from inside.
Peshmerga officials said there were still some suicide bombers and snipers inside.
“We are conducting clearing operations from house to house. The Daesh fighters are travelling inside tunnels,” said Colonel Dilshad Mawlud, a peshmerga media official, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
“About 5 percent of the town is still under Daesh control,” peshmerga Major Sayyed Hajjar said.
Iraqi forces have been tightening the noose around Mosul since launching the offensive olast month, with elite troops last week breaching city limits.
Upping pressure on the jihadists, the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance on Saturday launched its own offensive on IS’s other bastion, the Syrian city of Raqa.
Raqa and Mosul are the last major cities in Syria and Iraq General under the jihadists’ control and their capture would deal a knockout blow to the selfstyled “caliphate” IS declared in mid-2014.
‘Determined to succeed’
The US-led coalition that launched operations against IS two years ago is providing backing to both offensives, with airstrikes and special forces advisers on the ground.
SDF forces have been pushing south from areas near the Turkish border towards Raqa and alliance spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed said yesterday they had moved to within 36 kilometres of the city.
“Two more villages have been taken since yesterday,” she said, adding that SDF forces had so far advanced 14 kilometres closer to Raqa from Ain Issa, the main staging point for the operation.
“The fighting continues; morale is good and our fighters are determined that this offensive will succeed.”
Like in the battle for Mosul, the goal of the Raqa offensive is to surround and isolate the jihadists inside the city, before eventually mounting a streetto-street assault.
In both cases officials are warning of long and bloody battles ahead, as jihadist forces are expected to put up a fierce fight and use trapped civilians as human shields.
More than a million people are believed to be in Mosul. Raqa had a population of some 240,000 before the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011 and more than 80,000 people have since fled.
Driving IS from both cities has been the endgame since the US-led coalition launched airstrikes in 2014, shortly after the jihadists seized swathes of Syria and Iraq.
Gains south of Mosul
Iraqi forces scored another victory against IS on Monday by establishing control over Hamam al-Alil, about 15 kilometres from Mosul and the last town of note on the way to the city from the south.
Iraqi forces said they found a mass grave at an agricultural college in the Hamam al-Alil area, with the offensive’s Joint Operations Command saying “100 bodies of citizens with their heads cut off” had been uncovered. An AFP journalist at the scene saw body parts and bones mixed with trash at the grave site in the desert west of the town. But it was not possible to determine the exact number of victims.
Iraqi fighters pulled two bodies, one of which was headless, out of the grave using ropes, the journalist said.
IS’s rule has been marked by atrocities including mass beheadings and other executions that it has documented in photos and videos that its supporters share online.
Iraqi fighters are advancing on Mosul from the north, east and south.
The eastern front has seen the most progress, with special forces battling IS inside the city.
Iraqi forces have also moved close to the city from the north but those on the southern front, who had the farthest to go, have still not reached the city’s outskirts.
The Mosul offensive has advanced faster than expected, but the battle for Raqa is more complicated.
Unlike in Iraq where the coalition has a state-controlled ally in federal forces, in Syria its ground partner is comprised of local militias, including some rebel groups that have battled President Bashar alAssad’s regime.