IS sets fire to mine to stop Iraqi push

IRAQ: A fire set by Islamic State militants at a sulphur mine near the city of Mosul in recent days sent plumes of noxious gases over the battlefield, sickening hundreds of civilians and forcing Iraqi and US troops to wear protective masks, health and military officials said yesterday.

Firefighters were still struggling yesterday to put out the blaze at the Mishraq sulphur mine, about 40 kilometres southeast of Mosul, according to Colonel Abdulrahman Al-Khazali, a spokesman for Iraqi Federal Police who visited the mine. Officials gave no indication that the fumes had interrupted a broader five-dayold offensive to capture Mosul from the militants. But the smouldering sulphur added to the list of unconventional weapons - including oil fires, armour-plated car bombs and exploding drones - the militants have deployed in an effort to slow the march of Iraqi forces toward the city.

In another attempt to distract their opponents, dozens of Islamic State fighters staged a bold raid on government buildings and police positions in the northern city of Kirkuk, east of Mosul, on Saturday.

The attack was largely contained by yesterday, but at least 80 people, mainly Kurdish security forces, had been killed during the incursion, a Kirkuk police official told the Associated Press. Soldiers were seen wearing surgical masks about 25km south of the fires on Saturday, where a highway and surrounding villages were blanketed in a dull grey haze. Several oil fires burned nearby, obscuring the view of the horizon with a curtain of black smoke.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi and Kurdish peshmerga soldiers are involved in the Mosul offensive, which started last week following months of operations in the countryside around the city. - Washington Post