Iraq: the peshmerga launched an offensive to retake Mosul



Last Updated: Monday, 08/15/2016

Wardak - Reuters:

Kurdish officials said the Kurdish Peshmerga forces launched a massive offensive on the al-Daash early yesterday as part of a campaign to restore the city of Mosul, a stronghold of the militant group.

The assault began after heavy shelling and air strikes carried out by US-led coalition.

Prey for militants to attack and fired mortars at the advancing forces also blew up two car bombs at least. Escalated black smoke billowed over the area as dozens of civilians fled towards the peshmerga lines waving white flags.

The commander of the Peshmerga It has been restored 11 villages from the grip Daash while the troops advanced to the queer target of the attack, which lies 40 km south-east of Mosul.

And allow repair of the bridge which was destroyed by militants in queer Daash the peshmerga guerrillas opened a new front on the connector. And it serves as the bridge over the largest Zab River, which flows into the Tigris River.

And gradually take the Iraqi army and peshmerga forces operating in the Kurdish region, autonomous sites located about 400 km north of Baghdad, Mosul.

The Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of al Daash has announced the grand mosque in Mosul in 2014 by the succession in the territories seized by the organization in Iraq and Syria. And Mosul, the largest urban center is under the control Daash and had a population before the war, about two million people.

It will fall as a real defeat for Daash in Iraq, in the words of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who said he aims to restore the city this year. Iraqi army and tries to advance from the south.

In July, it dominated the Qayyarah air base located some 60 kilometers south of Mosul, which also will be a major starting point for the upcoming attack on the city. He said the security of the Kurdistan Regional Council in a statement that the peshmerga process, "one of the structural processes that also increase the pressure on Daash in and around Mosul," In Baghdad, Brett McGurk US envoy to the alliance, which is fighting Daash The preparation for an attack on Mosul, "approaching the final stage," he said, He added that the planning included humanitarian considerations. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said last month that when the intensification of fighting around Mosul could reach a number of fleeing from their homes in northern Iraq to one million people, representing "a huge humanitarian problem."

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