Fighting enters third day as Iraqi forces backed by coalition air strikes push towards last major ISIL stronghold.
Fighting
has entered the third day as coalition forces focused efforts on the
town of Hamdaniya as they march towards Mosul, the second largest Iraqi
city and the last major ISIL stronghold in the country.
Explosives and booby traps laid down by ISIL (Islamic State
of Iraq and the Levant group), also known as ISIS, slowed down the Iraqi
offensive in recent days, despite air support from the US-led
coalition.
ISIL snipers posed danger to Iraqi forces trying to advance towards Mosul as the coalition air strikes pounded Hamdaniya.
"What we saw on the first day of the offensive - with
Peshmerga forces taking the lead, clearing ground, and taking villages -
that was easy, even though ISIL put up a fight," she said. "It was easy
because [those areas] were depopulated. Hamdaniya is more difficult. It
is a built-up area with civilians inside."
"If [the Iraqi forces] take over Hamdaniya, they will be at the gates of Mosul itself," she added.
Before ISIL's takeover in 2014, Hamdaniya's population stood
at 50,000. Although most civilians fled at the time, a few thousand
people are believed to reside in the town.
Although reports have suggested the use of human shields by
ISIL, Khodr said that it was impossible to independently verify these
reports given that communication with these towns and cities has been
cut off.
It is estimated that as many as 4,500 ISIL fighters remain in and around Mosul [Reuters] |
The Iraqi offensive to retake Mosul began on the first day with the taking of nine villages, mostly by Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
But Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid, also reporting from
Khazir, said that since then the armed forces' advance was "not as
formidable" as the first day.
Iraqi commanders maintain that progress continues to be made
as their forces push from two main fronts, namely, the south, where
government troops are moving up towards Mosul, and the east and north,
from where their Kurdish allies are advancing.
Late on Tuesday, the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF), a
coalition of mostly Iranian-trained militias, said it would back Iraqi
government forces advancing toward Tal Afar, about 55km west of Mosul.
Taking Tal Afar would effectively cut off the escape route
for fighters wanting to head into neighbouring Syria, but it could also
hamper the escape of civilians from the area of Mosul, a Sunni-majority
city.
ISIL forces are believed to be vastly outnumbered, with the
US military calculating up to 4,500 fighters in and around Mosul,
compared with an estimated 30,000 Iraqi army troops, Kurdish Peshmerga
fighters and Sunni tribal forces.
Iraqi forces have significant ground to cover before
reaching the boundaries of the city, which ISIL is defending with berms,
bombs and burning oil trenches.
The US-led coalition said air strikes destroyed 52 targets on the first day of the operation.
"Early indications are that Iraqi forces have met their
objectives so far, and that they are ahead of schedule for this first
day," Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said.
Most of the coalition's support has come in the shape of air
strikes and training, but US, British and French special forces are
also on the ground to advise local troops.
Mosul is Iraq's second-largest city and the United Nations fears that up to a million people could be forced from their homes by the fighting , with 700,000 of them in need of shelter.
"We don't know where [the civilians] are going," Al Jazeera's Imran Khan reported, also from Khazir.
"We know people have fled from these villages [recently won
by Peshmerga forces] and wound up in IDP camps, but we've heard very
little about the people who are still stuck - there are some 1.2 million
people still in [Mosul]. Where they go once this fighting intensifies
remains a very big issue."
Source Jazeera News
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