Kurds attack IS-held town as Mosul battle rages

20th, October 2016

NAWARAN, Iraq:  Kurdish forces launched a major assault on Thursday on a town held by the IS group near Mosul, opening a new front in the offensive to wrest back the IS last Iraqi bastion. Prime Minister Haider al Abadi told an international meeting in Paris that the offensive was “advancing faster than expected” as it entered its fourth day. France and Iraq were co-chairing the meeting on the future of Mosul, which observers have warned could raise even greater challenges than the massive military operation to retake it.

In some areas, the Iraqi advance was met by a trickle of civilians fleeing both the fighting and the extremists who ruled them for two years, but the feared mass exodus from Mosul has yet to materialise.

The main target of the latest Kurdish push was the town of Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul. Iraqi forces also pressed assaults towards the city from the east and south.

Bulldozers flattened a path for forces in armoured vehicles to carve their way down towards Bashiqa. As tanks and personnel carriers prepared to advance, a shadow glided above them and one peshmerga shouted “drone!”

Fighters opened fire at it with every weapon available, causing an almighty din and lighting up the dim morning sky, until it fell to the ground and the troops resumed their advance.

An AFP reporter in the village of Nawaran near Bashiqa saw the downed drone, a Raven RQ-11B model similar to a booby-trapped one that killed two Kurdish fighters and wounded two French soldiers a week ago.