NEAR BASHIQA, Iraq // Iraqi Kurdish fighters exchanged heavy fire with militants early on Monday as they advanced from two directions into a town held by ISIL east of the city of Mosul.
The offensive to reclaim Bashiqa is part of the broader push to drive ISIL out of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and the militants’ last major urban stronghold in the country.
Combat began at dawn with a Kurdish barrage of heavy artillery, Katyusha rockets and mortar rounds slamming into ISIL positions, providing cover for the advance of armoured columns.
Smoke rose from town throughout the day, with large explosions sending dark clouds into the sky.
“We have the co-ordinates of their bases and tunnels, and we are targeting them from here in order to weaken them so that our forces can reach their targets more easily,” said Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga commander Brigadier General Iskander Khalil Gardi.
Bashiqa, which is believed to be largely deserted except for dozens of ISIL fighters, is about 13 kilometres north-east of the edge of Mosul and about 20km from the city centre.
Iraqi government and Kurdish forces, backed by a US-led coalition and joined by government-sanctioned militias, are fighting to drive ISIL out of those surrounding areas and open additional fronts to attack Mosul itself.
Bashiqa has been surrounded by Kurdish forces, known as peshmerga, for weeks but Monday’s push appears to be the most serious yet to drive ISIL from the town.
Kurdish forces launched mortar rounds and fired heavy artillery into the town on Sunday in advance of the offensive. More artillery and air strikes hit the town early on Monday as the Kurdish forces’ advance got underway.
On Mosul’s southern front, Iraqi soldiers were advancing into Hamam Al Alil, some 20km from the city centre. Private broadcaster Lebanon-based Al Mayadeen showed images of soldiers hoisting the Iraqi flag on a rooftop in the town.
Army spokesman Brigadier Firas Bashar said the town had been retaken, although fighting still continued and other reports said that ISIL fighters remained in several areas.
Iraqi special forces entered Mosul last week and have made some progress in gaining a foothold on the city’s eastern edges. But progress inside the city has been slowed as troops push into more densely populated areas.
The troops are suffering casualties as the militants have bogged them down with suicide car bombs, booby traps and close-quarters fighting along narrow streets. ISIL still holds territory to the north, south and west of Mosul.
As Iraqi forces struggle to solidify gains in neighbourhoods in eastern Mosul, more and more civilians are fleeing the city, according to special forces Lieutenant Colonel. Hussein Aziz.
“Daesh is trying to draw a line,” he said of the heavy fighting in Mosul’s eastern most neighbourhoods. “They have a lot of fighters there and they forced families to stay.”
Lt Col Aziz mans a small checkpoint on the edge of Gogjali, Mosul’s easternmost neighbourhood, where civilians fleeing Mosul are screened to catch any ISIL fighters who may be hiding among them. Since Iraqi forces first pushed into the eastern edge of the city last Tuesday, his team has arrested dozens of people.
At the checkpoint, men were waiting for their names to be screened by a pair of informants from the area and multiple Iraqi government databases. Women and children waited further back from the road in the shade of an abandoned building.
Gayda, a 42-year-old woman from Mosul, said she fled the Samah neighbourhood just hours earlier, after a car bomb exploded next to her home.
When they reached the checkpoint, her husband and son were separated from her and her daughter, and held for questioning a few metres away.
“How can he be from Daesh, he’s so young,” she said of the 18-year old son. “We are good people, we don’t have any enemies.”
* Associated Press
