Iraqi Troops Gain Villages From Daesh Ahead Of Mosul Battle

MEP: Iraqi forces a head of the second day of the battle to retake Mosul from Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) terrorists have secured about 20 villages on the outskirts of the city in the first 24 hours of the operation.

The operation began on Monday hours after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced in a brief speech aired on state television just before 2 a.m. that the long-awaited campaign to liberate Mosul had begun.

As dawn broke Tuesday, the second day of the battle for Mosul, a diverse coalition of Iraqi Security Forces troops, Kurdish Peshmerga allies and thousands of Iraqi irregulars gritted their teeth and prepared to again meet militant forces in the dusty scrubland outside the city.

Meanwhile, a military source told Arabic-language al-Sumaria television network on Tuesday that Iraqi fighter jets have targeted a convoy of Daesh terrorists as they were fleeing Mosul.

The Iraqi military aircraft had struck 30 vehicles the previous night in an area close to the border with Syria. The source added that the slain terrorists, mostly non-Arabs, were escaping Mosul toward Raqqah, which is Daesh’s so-called headquarters in Syria.

Daesh overran Mosul in June 2014, before taking control of much of northern and western Iraq.

Kurdish forces also announced Tuesday that they were pausing their advance 30km east of Mosul as the Iraqi army presses ahead with the next stage of the operation.

Reports also indicate that fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units have shot and killed a senior Daesh operative, identified as Khalaf Salem, in a hilly area on the outskirts of Mosul as he was fleeing the pro-government forces.

Salem was reportedly in charge of executions and “public treasury” in Mosul.