Updated: Iraqi army announces start of phase 2 of Mosul battles
Iraqi rapid response forces ride in a military vehicle during a fight with Islamic State militants in Intisar district of eastern Mosul, Iraq, (Reuters)
Abdul-Wahab al-Saidi, a senior commander and a spokesperson of the army’s elite counter-Terrorism Forces, said in press statements that the second phase of operations began Thursday morning with forces advancing towards the southeastern al-Karama and al-Quds districts.
The resumption of operations comes after almost a week of recess dictated by inclement weather and the need for resupply and military reinforcements.
“Our troops now are advancing. In the first five or 10 minutes they took 500 meters. Just now they are starting to shoot,” Reuters quoted an officer from the rapid response forces, an elite Interior Ministry unit, as saying earlier on Thursday.
Those forces were advancing in Intisar district, while thousands of federal police troops redeployed from Mosul’s southern outskirts two weeks ago were expected to push into a nearby area, he said.
The battle for Mosul, involving 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of the Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite militiamen, is the biggest ground operation in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.
The upcoming phase appears likely to give U.S. military advisers, part of an international coalition fighting Islamic State, a bigger role as they embed more extensively with Iraqi forces.
Mosul, the largest city held by Islamic State anywhere across its once vast territorial holdings in Iraq and neighboring Syria, has been held by the group since its fighters drove the U.S.-trained Iraqi army out in June 2014.
Its fall would probably end the group’s ambition to rule over millions of people in a self-styled caliphate, but the fighters could still mount a traditional insurgency in Iraq, and plot or inspire attacks on the West.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who previously pledged to retake Mosul by the end of the year, said this week it would take another three months to rout Islamic State in Iraq.