AFP, ATHBAH, Iraq: Iraqi forces on Friday entered a west Mosul neighbourhood for the first time since the October launch of a massive offensive to retake the city from the Islamic State group. The push on Al-Maamun, a small neighbourhood on the southwestern edge of Mosul, came after government troops retook the airport, which commands access to the city from the south, and a nearby military base.
The jihadists have been on the back foot in both Iraq and neighbouring Syria, the twin pivots of the “caliphate” they declared in July 2014. Turkish-backed rebels ousted IS from the strategic Syrian town of Al-Bab on Thursday although they suffered a reverse on Friday when a suicide bomber attacked one of their command centres just outside the town, killing 42 people.
“We have attacked and fully control Ghazlani base, we have also taken Tal al-Rayyan… and we’re attacking Al-Maamun neighbourhood,” said Sami al-Aridhi, a lieutenant general in Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service.
He told AFP near the front line that IS jihadists attacked his forces with a suicide car bomb in Tal al-Rayyan, a village just outside Mosul, and that three other car bombs were found there.
Aridhi said the CTS, the most-seasoned force in Iraq, had suffered no losses since the renewed push on west Mosul was launched on Sunday.
He said some fighters had been wounded, however, including by the weaponised drones IS has increasingly resorted to in recent weeks.
AFP reporters south of Mosul said heavy artillery and mortar fire could be heard coming from the southern edge of the city while jets also conducted strikes. While it was not immediately clear whether CTS forces would seek to push deep into the city or simply set up positions on the edge, the move marks another landmark in the protracted Mosul operation.
CTS spearheaded the weeks-long effort to retake areas of the city on the east bank of the Tigris River, only fully liberating it last month.
They met fierce resistance from jihadists defending their last major stronghold in Iraq and commanders have warned that the west bank, where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed his caliphate, would be even tougher.
