Iraqi army, Peshmerga launch fresh assaults near Mosul

Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the Kurdish Peshmerga launched coinciding, but separate, assaults today with air and artillery support from the US-led coalition in an attempt to break the deadlock that has caused the advance towards Daesh-held Mosul to stumble.

On the fourth day of the operation to recapture Mosul from Daesh militants, Iraqi troops from the elite Counter Terrorism Service drove towards the town of Bartella, about 15 kilometres east of Mosul, in Humvees mounted with machine guns.

Meanwhile, Peshmerga units advanced towards Bashiqa, about 12 kilometres northeast of Mosul, and not too far from a military camp where Turkish troops have been deployed on a training mission since December 2015.

In a statement, the Peshmerga’s general military command said: “The objectives are to clear a number of nearby villages and secure control of strategic areas to further restrict [Daesh’s] movements.”

Kurdish forces crossed the trenches near Nawran towards Khorsabad, roughly 10 kilometres north of Mosul, that marked the boundary between areas of control that fell under the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Daesh for almost two years.

While these offensives occurred simultaneously, Al Jazeera reported that sources from within the Kurdish authorities confirmed that the Peshmerga were not being assisted by troops loyal to Baghdad.

Iraqi advance stalled for second day

This comes as Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi tried to convince senior officials in Paris today that the battle for Mosul shows unprecedented Iraqi unity.

Appearing via video teleconferencing, Al-Abadi stressed that the Mosul operation was the first time in 25 years that Iraqi forces had entered Kurdish territory to fight together. This is despite the fact that Saddam sent forces in support of KRG President Massoud Barzani’s war against rival Jalal Talabani in 1996.

There are so far no indications that Al-Abadi has updated the high level gathering in Paris today as to the status of the Christian majority town of Qaraqosh, less than 20 kilometres southeast of Mosul.

Daesh snipers and traps managed to force an entire brigade of the Iraqi 9th Armoured Division to withdraw from Qaraqosh on Tuesday night, and they have since failed to retake the town. The ISF have instead elected to besiege Qaraqosh and are subjecting it to intense bombardment.

Despite these delays, Al-Abadi told the senior officials in Paris today that Iraqi “forces are pushing towards [Mosul] more quickly than we thought and more quickly than we had programmed in our campaign plan.”

Daesh has held Mosul, Iraq’s second city, since June 2014 when it put up to 30,000 ISF troops to flight in an assault that lasted less than two days. Baghdad now seeks to retake Mosul with international support before the end of this year.