PHOTO: Kurdish peshmerga prepare for a dawn offensive on Thursday (Rudaw)
On its fourth day, the Iraqi-Kurdish offensive to recapture Mosul is fighting the Islamic State on three fronts.
Kurdish peshmerga reported that they are fighting ISIS from the villages of Badush to the west, Tel Skuf to the north, and Bashiqa to the east. They claim the capture of two more villages today and are fighting for a third, Batnay.
Iraqi forces, including units from the elite counter-terrorism service, are hoping to overcome ISIS resistance in the town of Hamdaniya, east of Mosul.
The forces attacked on Wednesday but were pushed back. Fighting is also reported today in nearby Bartella, 20 km (12.5 miles) east of Mosul, with at least four ISIS suicide car bombs.
“We are surrounding Hamdaniya now,” Lieutenant-General Riyadh Tawfiq, commander of Iraq’s ground forces,said. “There are some pockets, some clashes. They send car bombs – but it will not help them.”
Before the Islamic State’s lightning offensive took over Mosul and the surrounding area in June 2014, Hamdaniya’s population was 50,000. A few thousand people are believed to still live in the town.
In Mosul, with estimates of 600,000 to 1.5 million civilians, people reported dwindling supplies as they sheltered in basements. One resident said:
We couldn’t sleep last night because of the air strikes. The explosions were huge but I’m not sure what the targets were.
Many families are starting to run out of some basic food goods, there is no commercial activity in Mosul — the city is cut off from the world.
The offensive began on Monday with the capture of nine villages, but soon encountered the challenge of ISIS suicide bombers and booby traps, as well as frontline battles.
The Iraqi and Kurdish forces are supported by US-led airstrikes and American, British, and French special forces.
Shia militias have said that they are ready to join the offensive, fighting for Tal Afar, about 55 km (34 miles) west of Mosul and near the Syrian border.
Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have warned of abuses by the militias as territory was taken from ISIS over the past year, but Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi assured an international conference on Thursday:
We will not allow violations of human rights. So we have set up investigation committees. We have brought some people to trial, some of them for violations of human rights during the course of battles.
