Iraq forces advance in town south of Mosul

Over a million could be displaced by offensive: UN

KIRKUK, Iraq, Aug 24, (AFP): Iraqi forces on Wednesday closed in on the centre of Qayyarah, officials said, on the second day of an operation to recapture the town from jihadists.

Qayyarah lies on the western bank of the Tigris river, about 60 kilometres (35 miles) south of Mosul, the Islamic State group’s last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

Brigadier General Najm al-Juburi from the operations command for Nineveh, the province in which both Qayyarah and Mosul are located, said the town was now encircled.

“There are only a few metres left before troops advancing from the west and troops coming from the east meet and complete the siege around Qayyarah,” he told AFP.

He said the vast majority of villages around Qayyarah had been retaken since special forces launched the operation on Tuesday.

Juburi and other military officials in the area confirmed the progress and said that a nearby oil field and refinery had also been recaptured from IS.

“Liberating Qayyarah will mean cutting off Mosul from the southern areas, which will make liberating Mosul much easier,” Juburi said.

“This is a blow to the organisation of Daesh (IS) because it affects their economy, and this after we retook an air base that is now going to be used to attack them,” he said.

Iraqi security forces have been operating in the area for weeks, as part of shaping operations for a major offensive on the city of Mosul in the coming weeks or months.

They had already retaken the Qayyarah air field, which IS was not using because it has no air force but which Iraqi aircraft will soon be using against the jihadists.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Tuesday reiterated his promise that Mosul would be retaken and the country rid of IS by the end of 2016.

IS has suffered a string of setbacks in Iraq and the “caliphate” it proclaimed two years ago has been shrinking steadily for a year. Its fighters are vastly outnumbered in Nineveh but one of the toughest challenges for Iraq will be the mass displacement a broad offensive on Mosul is expected to trigger.

The United Nations says more than a million people could soon be displaced as a result of the fighting in Iraq.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric says that’s because the focus of military action in the country is turning to Mosul, the country’s second largest city.

Iraqi forces are conducting a series of small-scale operations around Mosul ahead of an eventual push to retake the city, which fell to the Islamic State group in 2014.

The UN’s refugee agency reports that up to 1.2 million people could be affected by the military offensive.

Dujarric said Tuesday that contingency plans have been drawn up to provide shelter assistance for up to 120,000 people fleeing Mosul and surrounding areas. Across the region, a series of camps are being established or expanded.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday discussed strategy in fighting Islamic State and Kurdish PKK militants with visiting Iraqi Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani, sources at Erdogan’s office said.

They said Erdogan and Barzani also addressed necessary steps to shut down schools and institutions in Iraqi Kurdistan that are affiliated with Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Islamic cleric whom Turkey blames for last month’s failed military coup.

The meeting in the Turkish capital comes as NATO member Turkey faces multiple threats from Islamic State at home and across the border with neighbouring Syria as well as from the outlawed PKK militants whose bases are in Qandil mountains in northern Iraq.