Kurdish fighters retake town

KURDISH fighters said they had taken the town of Bashiqa near Mosul from Islamic State yesterday as coalition forces pressed their offensive against the jihadists’ last stronghold in Iraq.

A US official said Masoud Barzani, President of the Iraqi Kurdish region, had told US Defence Secretary Ash Carter that the Kurds had succeeded in liberating Bashiqa.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters said they had entered Bashiqa.

Journalists were not being allowed into the town, 12km to the north-east of Mosul.

Its capture, if confirmed, would mark the removal of one more obstacle on the road to the northern Iraqi city.

The UN agency said more than 4000 people had fled areas around Mosul since the massive military operation to retake the IS-held city began. Unicef ’s Iraq representative, Peter Hawkins, could not provide an exact figure but said that in at least one refugee camp the conditions for children were “very very poor”. He said Unicef teams delivered water, sanitation and other supplies expected to last seven days.

They also provided immunisations against polio and measles – not available during the more than two years that the people lived under IS rule.

Unicef plans to assist more than 784 000 people, including up to 500 000 children.

Hawkins says children in and around Mosul are at risk of death or injury from the fighting, as well as sexual violence, kidnapping and recruitment by armed groups.

In Nawran, a town near Bashiqa, Kurdish Peshmerga forces moved though the area, armoured vehicles moved along a road and a helicopter flew overhead.

The Peshmerga are also using tanks, rocket launchers and snipers. The fighters destroyed at least three suicide car bombs dispatched against their forces. The offensive that started last Monday to capture Mosul is backed by a US-led coalition. It is expected to become the biggest battle in Iraq since the USled invasion in 2003.

Coalition forces have advanced to within 5km of Mosul at the closest point, the interior minister of the Kurdish regional government has said.

Special forces

An Iraqi force of about 30000, joined by US special forces and under American, French and British air cover, is ready to push into Mosul after recapturing Falluja and Ramadi, west of Baghdad, and seizing the Sunni stronghold of Tikrit in central Iraq.

IS has staged attacks apparently aimed at distracting the advancing forces. They hit the city of Kirkuk on Friday and yesterday attacked Rutba, a town 360km west of Baghdad, where they killed at least seven policemen, a police source said.

The mayor, Imad al-Dulaimi, said the insurgents attacked during the night and gained entry to the town by co-ordinating with sleeper cells there. About 30 insurgents skirmished with tribal fighters and security forces before vanishing.

In an attempt to repel the offensive against Mosul, ISalso set fire to a sulphur plant near the city. Up to 1 000 people were treated in hospital after inhaling toxic fumes.

Coalition officials have said the offensive is going well, but that it will take a long time to recapture Mosul, which has a civilian population of 1.5 million.

Between 4000 and 8000 IS fighters have rigged the city with explosives, built oil-filled moats, dug tunnels, and trenches and are feared to be ready to use civilians as human shields.

Carter sounded optimistic about the campaign to take Mosul during a trip to Erbil as he praised the Kurdish region’s Peshmerga fighters.

“I’m here to commend you and your forces. I’m encouraged by what I see,” Carter told Barzani.

Peshmerga spokesman Brigadier General Halgord Hekmet said 25 Kurdish forces had been killed so far.

Carter lamented Kurdish casualties but extolled the region’s forces as “exceptionally capable”.

During the meeting, Barzani said the Mosul operation had started successfully and cited good progress over the past three days.

He thanked the US and the coalition for their support.

In Rome, Pope Francis said he was close to the Iraqi people and in particular to the citizens of Mosul.

“Our souls are shaken by the brutal acts of violence that for too long have been carried out against innocent citizens, be they Muslim, Christian or from other ethnic and religious groups.”

The pope said he had been saddened by reports that numerous people, including many children, had been “killed in cold blood”. – Reuters