MOSUL // Iraqi troops on Friday entered Mosul city from the north for the first time in their battle to retake the city from ISIL, and also recaptured several villages from the extremists on the second day of a separate offensive in western Anbar province.
The gains in Iraq came as the group faced increasing pressure in neighbouring Syria, where it lost a key position near its de facto capital of Raqqa and was engaged in street fighting with Turkish-backed Syrian rebels to hold on to the town of Al Bab.
The breakthrough by army units in northern Mosul followed the capture of more territory from ISIL in an overnight raid by Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), which has taken the lead in much of the assault on the city.
The CTS said its troops launched the raid across a tributary of the Tigris river in east Mosul, where more than half of the districts are now in government hands.
“We used special equipment and had the element of surprise – the enemy did not expect us to mount a night offensive because all previous offensives were during the day,” said CTS spokesman Sabah Al Numan.
Troops would soon “cut the head of the snake” and ISIL from its last urban stronghold in Iraq, Iraqi prime minister Haidar Al Abadi said on Friday.
Iraqi forces have yet to cross the Tigris to the western half of Mosul, where the extremists are still firmly in control.
More than 100,000 civilians have fled the city, but 1.5 million people have stayed behind, which commanders say has forced the government troops to slow their advance.
The militants, who are thought to number several thousand in Mosul, are putting put up fierce resistance using suicide car bombs and snipers. They have also continued to strike elsewhere in Iraq, killing at least four soldiers and wounding 12 others on Friday in attacks on an army outpost and a police station near the city of Tikrit, about 200 kilometres south of Mosul.
Iraqi forces also retook a series of villages from ISIL in western Iraq on Friday as they fought to oust it from territory near the Syrian border.
The operation, which aims to recapture the towns of Rawa, Aanah and Al Qaim – the last main populated areas held by ISIL in Anbar province – was launched on Thursday.
“Our military units liberated seven villages from Daesh control between the town of Haditha and the town of Aanah,” said Staff Maj Gen Qassem Al Mohammedi, the head of the army’s Jazeera operations command.
Staff Maj Gen Noman Abed Al Zobai, the commander of the 7th Division, said government forces had reached the outskirts of Al Sagra, an area south-east of Aanah.
Across the border in north-eastern Syria, Syrian Kurdish-led forces said they had captured a medieval castle on a hilltop overlooking a strategic town held by ISIL and less than 32km from Raqqa.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) gained control of Jaabar Castle, which dates to the 11th century, following days of intense clashes.
The castle sits on the northern bank of Assad Lake, within 4km of the strategic Tabqa dam and the ISIL-held town of the same name where the group has a number of prisons.
SDF spokesman Talal Sillo there were intelligence reports that ISIL militants have been transferring captives from there to Raqqa.
The US military command in the Middle East said on Friday that a senior ISIL member had been killed in an air strike on Raqqa by the US-led coalition against the extremists.
Centcom identified the target as Mahmud Al Isawi, an ISIL operative who managed instructions and finances for the group’s leaders and provided propaganda and intelligence support.
It said he was killed on December 31, making him the 16th significant member of the network’s external operations killed last year.
Meanwhile, Turkish-backed Syrian rebels were fighting street battles with ISIL militants in the city of Al Bab.
The rebels, backed by Turkish special forces, tanks and war planes, have been besieging the ISIL-held city for weeks as part of an operation to drive the extremists out of a strip of Syrian territory along the Turkish border.
* Agencies
