Iraqi troops launch second phase of Mosul operation

mosul — Iraqi security forces on Thursday began the second phase of their offensive against Daesh militants in Mosul, pushing into some eastern districts where the battle has been in deadlock for nearly a month.

Thousands of federal police troops who redeployed from Mosul’s southern outskirts two weeks ago also pushed into a handful of southeastern districts, state television reported.

“This is the second phase of the operation to liberate Mosul conducted by the special forces, the federal police and us on this front,” General Nejm Jabouri, a senior army commander, said in a village just north of Mosul.

Since the offensive to capture Mosul began nine weeks ago, counter-terrorism forces have retaken a quarter of the city, the militants’ last major stronghold in Iraq, but their advance has been slow and punishing. They entered a planned “operational refit” earlier this month, the first significant pause of the campaign.

An officer from an elite Interior Ministry unit said on Thursday it was advancing alongside counterterrorism People have been displaced since operations began to retake mosul forces in Mosul’s Intisar district, where army troops advised by US forces had made little progress.

“Our troops now are advancing. In the first five or 10 minutes they took 500 metres. Just now they are starting to shoot,” the officer said.

A plume of white smoke, likely from an air strike, rose from a southeastern district on Thursday morning while at the northern front heavy gunfire was audible and a suicide car bomb was disabled by the Iraqi army before reaching its target.

The battle for Mosul involving 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of the Kurdish security forces and Shia militiamen, is the biggest ground operation in Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003.