Reuters - Islamic State
launched a major attack on the city of Kirkuk on Friday as Iraqi and Kurdish
forces pursued operations to seize territory around Mosul in preparation
for an offensive on the jihadists' last major stronghold in Iraq.
for an offensive on the jihadists' last major stronghold in Iraq.
Islamic
State's assault on Kirkuk, which lies in an oil- producing region, killed 18
members of the security forces and workers at a power station outside the city,
including two Iranians, a hospital source said.
Crude oil
production facilities were not targeted and the power supply continued
uninterrupted in the city. Kirkuk is located east of Hawija, a pocket still
under control of Islamic State that lies between Baghdad and Mosul.
With air and
ground support from the U.S.-led coalition, Iraqi government forces captured
eight villages south and southeast of Mosul. Kurdish forces attacking from the
north and east also captured several villages, according to statements from
their respective military commands overnight.
The offensive
that started on Monday to capture Mosul is expected to become the biggest
battle fought in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
The United
Nations says Mosul could require the biggest humanitarian relief operation in
the world, with worst-case scenario forecasts of up to a million people being
uprooted.
About 1.5
million residents are still believed to be inside Mosul. Islamic State has
taken 550 families from villages around Mosul and is holding them close to IS
locations in the city, probably as human shields, a spokeswoman for the U.N.
human rights office said in Geneva.
The fighting
has forced 5,640 people to flee their homes so far from the vicinity of the
city, the International Organization for Migration said late on Thursday.
The Turkish
Red Crescent said it was sending aid trucks to northern Iraq with food and
humanitarian supplies for 10,000 people displaced by fighting around Mosul.
EXPLOSIVE
DEVICE
A U.S. service
member died on Thursday from wounds sustained in an improvised explosive device
blast near the city.
Roughly 5,000
U.S. forces are in Iraq. More than 100 of them are embedded with Iraqi and
Kurdish Peshmerga forces, advising commanders and helping them ensure coalition
air power hits the right targets, officials say.
However, the
Kurdish military command complained that air support wasn't enough on Thursday.
"Regrettably
a number of Peshmerga have paid the ultimate sacrifice for us to deliver
today's gains against ISIL. Further, Global Coalition warplane and support were
not as decisive as in the past," the Kurdish command said in a statement.
Prime Minister
Haidar al-Abadi, addressing anti-Islamic State coalition allies meeting in
Paris via video link, said the offensive was advancing more quickly than
planned.
A senior
Kurdish military official told Reuters the offensive by the Iraqi and Kurdish
forces was moving steadily as they push into villages on the outskirts of
Mosul.
But he
expected the offensive to slow down once they approach the city itself, where
Islamic State had built trenches, dug tunnels and might use civilians as human
shields.
"I
believe it will be more clear within the coming weeks once we get rid of those
villages and we come closer to the city how quickly this war will end. If they
(Islamic State) decide to defend the actual city then the process will slow
down."
Once inside
Mosul, Iraqi special forces would have to go from street to street and from
neighborhood to neighborhood to clear explosives and booby traps, the official
said.
Islamic State
denied that government forces had advanced. Under the headline "The
crusade on Nineveh gets a lousy start," the group's weekly online magazine
Al-Nabaa said it repelled assaults on all fronts, killing dozens in ambushes
and suicide attacks and destroying dozens of vehicles including tanks.
In online
statements, Islamic State said it launched a series of counter-attacks and four
suicide bombings to take back villages that fell on Thursday to the army and
the Kurds and that it had blocked all their fresh offensives.
HOLED UP
In Kirkuk,
Islamic State attacked several police buildings and a power station in the
early hours of Friday and some of the attackers remained holed up in a mosque
and an abandoned hotel.
The militants
also cut the road between the city and the power station 30 km (20 miles) to
the north.
Several dozen
took part in the assault, according to security sources who couldn't confirm a
claim by Islamic State that it had taken a Kurdish police officer hostage.
The assailants
in Kirkuk came from outside the city, said the head of Iraq's Special Forces,
Lieutenant General Talib Shaghati, speaking on a frontline east of Mosul.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi reacted to the killing of the
Iranian citizens in Kirkuk, saying these attacks are "the last breath of
terrorists in Iraq".
At least eight
militants were killed, either by blowing themselves up or in clashes with the
security forces, the sources said. Kurdish forces had dislodged the militants
from all the police and public buildings they had seized before dawn, they said
Prime Minister
Haidar al-Abadi, addressing anti-Islamic State coalition allies meeting in
Paris via video link, said the offensive was advancing more quickly than
planned.
A senior
Kurdish military official told Reuters the offensive by the Iraqi and Kurdish
forces was moving steadily as they push into villages on the outskirts of
Mosul.
But he
expected the offensive to slow down once they approach the city itself, where
Islamic State had built trenches, dug tunnels and might use civilians as human
shields.
"I
believe it will be more clear within the coming weeks once we get rid of those
villages and we come closer to the city how quickly this war will end. If they
(Islamic State) decide to defend the actual city then the process will slow
down."
Once inside
Mosul, Iraqi special forces would have to go from street to street and from
neighborhood to neighborhood to clear explosives and booby traps, the official
said.
Islamic State
denied that government forces had advanced. Under the headline "The
crusade on Nineveh gets a lousy start," the group's weekly online magazine
Al-Nabaa said it repelled assaults on all fronts, killing dozens in ambushes
and suicide attacks and destroying dozens of vehicles including tanks.
In online
statements, Islamic State said it launched a series of counter-attacks and four
suicide bombings to take back villages that fell on Thursday to the army and
the Kurds and that it had blocked all their fresh offensives.
HOLED UP
In Kirkuk,
Islamic State attacked several police buildings and a power station in the
early hours of Friday and some of the attackers remained holed up in a mosque
and an abandoned hotel.
The militants
also cut the road between the city and the power station 30 km (20 miles) to
the north.
Several dozen
took part in the assault, according to security sources who couldn't confirm a
claim by Islamic State that it had taken a Kurdish police officer hostage.
The assailants
in Kirkuk came from outside the city, said the head of Iraq's Special Forces,
Lieutenant General Talib Shaghati, speaking on a frontline east of Mosul.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi reacted to the killing of the
Iranian citizens in Kirkuk, saying these attacks are "the last breath of
terrorists in Iraq".
At least eight
militants were killed, either by blowing themselves up or in clashes with the
security forces, the sources said. Kurdish forces had dislodged the militants
from all the police and public buildings they had seized before dawn, they said
MACHINE GUN
Kurdish NRT TV
footage showed machine gun fire hitting a drab two-floor building that used to
be a hotel, and cars burning in a nearby street.
Islamic State
claimed the attacks in online statements, and authorities declared a curfew in
the city where Kurdish forces were getting reinforcements.
Kurdish
Peshmerga fighters took control of Kirkuk in 2014, after the Iraqi army
withdrew from the region, fleeing an Islamic State advance through northern and
western Iraq.
On the
frontline south of Mosul, thick black smoke lingered from oil wells that
Islamic State torched to evade air surveillance, in the region of Qayyara.
The army and
the U.S.-led coalition took back this region in August and are using its air
base as a hub to support the offensive on Mosul.
"Long
live Iraq, death to Daesh," was painted on a wall near an army checkpoint
there, referring to an Arabic acronym of Islamic State.
The army
Humvees at the checkpoint carried Shi'ite flags, revealing that the soldiers of
this unit belonged to Iraq's majority community.
Flying Shi'ite
flags in the predominantly Sunni region and the participation of the Popular
Mobilization Force, a coalition of mostly Iranian-trained militias, in a
support role to the army has raised concerns of sectarian violence and revenge
killings during or after the battle.
The nation's
top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, on Friday renewed a call to
spare civilians.
"All
those who are participating in the battle have to respect the humanitarian
principles and refrain from seeking vengeance," said a sermon delivered in
Sistani's name in the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala by one of his
representatives.
Reuters.
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