MOSUL // Iraqi special forces seized Mosul’s Masaref neighbourhood and advanced in the densely populated Zohour district on Friday as they continued their push to retake the eastern half of the city from ISIL.
The offensive to capture Zohour began earlier this week, but troops are facing spirited resistance there, said Brig Gen Haider Fadhil.
The latest gains in Mosul came as Iran called for tougher action against the extremists following a bombing that killed scores of Shiite pilgrims including Iranians.
“I strongly request the Iraqi government to deal more resolutely with the perpetrators of such inhumane acts,” Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said.
Thursday’s lorry bombing, claimed by ISIL, ripped through a petrol station south of Baghdad where buses packed with pilgrims returning from the shrine city of Karbala were parked.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister Hassan Qashqavi said that 80 people were killed, including 40 Iranians. However, Iraqi officials have said most of the dead were Iranian. Conflicting death tolls are common in the aftermath of large attacks.
The bombing at Hilla underlined ISIL’s continuing ability to stage high-profile terror attacks despite the massive Iraqi military operation in Mosul, its last major urban stronghold in Iraq. While ISIL frequently carries out bombings in Baghdad, Thursday’s attack took place in Iraq’s Shiite hinterland, a region that has largely been spared the near-daily violence that has for years engulfed the capital and Sunni regions.
The extremist group has stepped up attacks since the launch of a campaign to retake Mosul on October 17, which has seen the city surrounded by Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and the Popular Mobilisation Forces, a coalition made up mainly of Iranian-trained Shiite paramilitary groups. Only Iraqi special forces have entered the city from the east so far. The US-led coalition against ISIL has provided air support and a small number of US special forces have been deployed alongside Iraqi troops.
Iraq is now readying a special force to storm the town of Tal Afar, an ISIL bastion west of Mosul that has been surrounded by the Popular Mobilisation Forces, in a way that would avoid revenge killings against the town’s Sunni population.
The army and police forces planning to storm Tal Afar will include Sunni and Shiite Turkmens, reflecting the main mix of the town’s population, said Hisham Al Hashimi, a Baghdad-based analyst who advises the government on ISIL affairs.
The 3,500-strong force will operate from an airbase just south of the town, he said.
Tal Afar’s Shiite community fled after ISIL swept through the region two years ago, declaring from Mosul a “caliphate” that also spanned parts of Syria.
Mr Al Hashimi said the Popular Mobilisation Forces would stay outside the town and enforce a blockade.
The involvement Shiite militias in the Mosul campaign has sparked fears of the kind of sectarian killings seen in other areas retaken from ISIL.
The Iraqi government has been keen to ally such fears in Tal Afar after Turkey threatened to intervene, citing its historic ties to Iraq’s ethnic Turkmen.
* Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters