IS shelling kills 7 civilians in eastern Mosul

The Iraqi army captured a handful of the mockups last week at a training site it retook from the group north of Mosul, ISIS’s last major stronghold in the country, which government forces have nearly surrounded but only breached so far from one direction.

Furthermore, Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jets of the Iraqi Air Force have carried out two airstrikes against a Daesh position in the town of al-Qaim, situated about 500 kilometers west of Baghdad, killing the self-proclaimed agriculture minister of the terror network, identified as Abu Saqr.

He did not give a toll for the campaign overall – either for security forces, civilians or Daesh fighters.

Recaptured areas inside Mosul, which was seized by Daesh in June 2014, would be handed over to local police, Maan added.

U.S-led coalition forces heavily attacked the airbase in March during Iraq’s invasion March 2003, and the US troops used it later for the ground forces.

At a news conference outside Mosul, Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the USled forces supporting the operation, said airstrikes had so far destroyed 59 suicide auto bombs and over 80 tunnels.

Iraqi forces launched a long-awaited operation to retake the country’s second largest city almost a month ago, but have only advanced into a few eastern districts.

An Iraqi Shi’ite militia said on Wednesday it was on the verge of driving Islamic State fighters from an air base west of Mosul, a victory which would threaten the Sunni group’s supply route from Syria to its last major stronghold in Iraq.

Nuri Kino, founder and president of campaign group A Demand For Action, spoke recently with a man who escaped from Mosul in 2014.

“They’re clearing those eastern neighborhoods of Mosul city, doing this in a deliberate and incremental manner so as to safeguard the civilian population as much as possible”, Davis said.

They said people are increasingly fearful because of what they see as slow advances by Iraqi forces.

Elsewhere in the embattled western province of Anbar, Iraqi army soldiers have thwarted a major Daesh vehicle bomb attack against a military base east of the town of Rutbah.

Meanwhile, and according to infographics released by Daesh’s Amaq news agency, the militant organisation has killed more than 2,400 Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in the first month since operations began.

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter holds a news conference at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia August 20, 2015.

No group claimed responsibility immediately for the attacks, but they bore the hallmarks of the Islamic State group, which has taken credit for similar bombings.

Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan said on Tuesday that Iraqi forces have driven out militants from more than one-third of the eastern half of the city, Reuters reported.

The airport is located some six kilometres (four miles) south of the town of Tal Afar, the ultimate target of an operation billed as an attempt to cut off jihadists in Mosul from territory they control farther west. The International Organization for Migration says more than 56,000 people have been displaced since the start of the offensive.