Iraq forces move to retake Christian town, Mosul capture to take months
forces prepared to retake the country’s largest Christian town from the Islamic State group on Wednesday, a key milestone in their progress towards the jihadists’ main hub of Mosul.
News of the move to recapture Qaraqosh sparked jubilation among Christians who had fled the town, with many dancing and singing in the city of Arbil.
Launched on Monday, the long-awaited advance on Mosul was making quick progress but US President Barack Obama joined a chorus of warnings the battle for IS’s last Iraqi stronghold would be tough.
Officials have said the retaking of Mosul -- in Iraq’s largest military operation in years -- could take weeks or months and warned that the hundreds of thousands of civilians still in the city could be used as human shields. Federal forces stormed Qaraqosh, about 15 km southeast Mosul, on Tuesday but IS fighters remained in the town. Units from Iraq’s elite counter-terrorism service (CTS), which has done the heavy lifting in most recent operations against IS, were poised to flush jihadists out of the town, officers said.“We are surrounding Hamdaniya now,” Lieutenant General Riyadh Tawfiq, commander of Iraq’s ground forces, told AFP at the main staging base of Qayyarah, referring to the district that includes Qaraqosh.
“We are preparing a plan to assault it and clear it later,” he said. “There are some pockets (of resistance), some clashes, they send car bombs -- but it will not help them.”
Displaced Christians held early celebrations on Tuesday night in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous region of Kurdistan, where they fled after IS seized the town. After gathering for a group prayer outside a church in the city, some in the crowd sang, danced and clapped.