Iraqi Shia militiamen recapture two villages in battle for Mosul
qayyarah (Iraq) — Iraqi paramilitary forces battled the Daesh group southwest of Mosul on Sunday, the second day of an operation to cut militant supply lines between the city and neighbouring Syria.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi troops and Kurdish peshmerga fighters have been advancing on Mosul from the north, east and south after the launch on October 17 of a vast offensive to retake Daesh’s last stronghold in the country.
After standing largely on the sidelines in the first days of the assault, forces from the Hashed Al Shaabi — a paramilitary umbrella organisation dominated by Iran-backed Shia militias — began a push on Saturday towards the west of Mosul.
The ultimate aim is the recapture of Tal Afar, a town west of the city, and the cutting of militant supply lines between Mosul and Syria, but the Hashed still has significant ground to cover.
In a series of statements on Sunday, the Hashed’s media office said it had retaken two villages, cleared another area and entered several more. Al Imraini, one of the two villages the Hashed said it recaptured, is 45km from Tal Afar, according to the media office. The Sunday fighting came a day after Iraq announced the recapture of Al Shura, an area south of Mosul with a long history as a militant bastion that has been the target of fighting for more than a week.
Iraq’s Joint Operations Command announced “the complete liberation of Al Shura,” saying that security forces advancing from four different sides had linked up in the area, which is north of Qayyarah base, the main hub for the southern front.
In Bartalla, a Christian town just east of Mosul, army and counterterrorism forces were consolidating their positions, unloading cases of weapons from trucks and organising their ammunition stocks. More than 17,600 people have fled their homes toward government-held areas since the Mosul operation began, the International Organisation for Migration said on Sunday.
Numbers are expected to soar as Iraqi forces close in on the city, which is home to more than a million people. — AFP