Iraqi special forces neared the eastern city limits of Mosul on Monday, tightening the noose as the offensive to retake the ISIL group stronghold entered its third week.
Forces from the elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) faced mortar fire as they pushed from the Christian town of Bartalla towards Mosul’s eastern suburbs, AFP correspondents at the front said.
As an aircraft struck a suspected ISIL mortar position in the distance, a convoy of Humvees sprayed gunfire across the arid plain at an industrial area held by terrorists.
Lieutenant Colonel Muntadhar al-Shimmari said CTS had recaptured Bazwaya, one of two ISIL-held villages that had been standing between Iraqi forces and the eastern edges of Mosul.
“Tonight, if everything is secured, we will be 700 meters (yards) from Mosul,” Shimmari said.
CTS forces had entered the second village, Gogjali, and were battling to retake it, Staff Lieutenant General Abdelwahab al-Saadi, a senior CTS commander, told AFP by telephone.
He denied reports that Iraqi forces had entered the Al-Karama area — about 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) from Gogjali — inside Mosul itself.
Backed by air and ground support from a US-led coalition, tens of thousands of Iraqi fighters are converging on Mosul on different fronts, in the country’s biggest military operation in years.
On the northern and eastern sides of Mosul, the extremist group’s last major bastion in Iraq, peshmerga forces from the autonomous Kurdish region recently took several villages and consolidated their positions.
