Iraq Launches 2nd Phase of Mosul Offensive

Since the offensive to capture Mosul began 10 weeks ago, counterterrorism forces have retaken a quarter of the city, the militants’ last major stronghold in Iraq, but their advance has been slow and troops on other fronts have made little progress.

The campaign entered its first significant pause earlier this month for a planned “operational refit”.

But Thursday, more than 5,000 soldiers and police troops who had redeployed from Mosul’s southern outskirts entered half a dozen southeastern neighborhoods, while counterterrorism forces advanced in Al-Quds and Karama districts after receiving reinforcements.

Army forces pushed simultaneously toward the northern city limits.

“At 7 a.m. this morning the three fronts began advancing toward the city center. The operation is ongoing today and tomorrow and until we liberate the eastern side of the city completely,” Lt. Gen. Ali Freiji, who was overseeing army operations in the north, told Reuters.

An officer from an elite Interior Ministry unit said Thursday it was advancing alongside federal police in Mosul’s Intisar district. Daesh resisted with sniper and machine-gun fire, he said.

A plume of white smoke, likely to be from an airstrike, rose from a southeastern district 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.

State TV said Daesh defenses were collapsing in the areas of Salam, Intisar, Wahda, Palestine and Al-Quds and that fighters’ bodies filled the streets there.

The government’s accounts are difficult to confirm since the authorities have increasingly restricted the foreign news media’s access to the battle fronts and areas retaken from Daesh in and around Mosul without providing a reason.

The military has not entered the city’s western side, whose built-up markets and narrow alleyways dating back more than two millennia will likely complicate advances.

The battle for Mosul involves 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of the Kurdish security forces and Shiite militiamen.

US commanders have said in recent weeks that their military advisers, part of an international coalition fighting Daesh, will embed more extensively with Iraqi forces.

Some of them were spotted on a rooftop behind the front lines Thursday, advising Iraqi commanders and watching over the operations.

An army colonel said Iraqi forces had suffered few casualties so far.

“The orders from the senior commanders are clear: no halting, no retreat until we reach the fourth bridge and link up with counterterrorism units,” he said.

The coalition bombed the last remaining bridge connecting the eastern and western parts of Mosul late Monday in a bid to block Daesh from redeploying and resupplying its fighters across the Tigris River.

“The enemy is currently isolated inside the left (eastern) bank of Mosul,” Yahya Rasool, a military spokesman, said on state TV. “In the coming days, Iraqi forces will liberate the entire left bank of Mosul and after that we will tackle the right.”

The Iraqi army, the voluntary forces and Kurdish fighters launched a large-scale offensive to retake Mosul on October 17.

Iraqi troops have reportedly liberated more than 100 towns, killed 1,700 terrorists and destroyed 650 of their vehicles since beginning of the decisive battle.

The full recapture of Mosul would mark the Takfiri militants’ effective defeat in the Iraqi half of the territory they seized in 2014.