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Wave of strikes as IS puts up tough defence of Mosul

Last Updated 25 October 2016, 08:41 IST

 Iraqi forces advancing on Mosul faced stiff resistance from the Islamic State group despite an unprecedented wave of US-led coalition air strikes in support of the week-old offensive.

Federal forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters gained ground in several areas, AFP correspondents said, but the jihadists were hitting back with shelling, sniper fire, suicide car bombs and booby traps.

IS has also tried to draw attention away from losses around Mosul by attacking Iraqi forces elsewhere, the latest coming on Sunday near the Jordanian border.

Following a weekend visit to Iraq by US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter, American officials said the coalition was providing the most air support yet.

"One week into Mosul operation, all objectives met thus far, and more coalition air strikes than any other 7-day period of war against ISIL (IS)," Brett McGurk, the top US envoy to the 60-nation coalition, wrote on social media.

"There were 32 strikes with 1,776 munitions delivered" against IS targets between October 17 and 23, coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian told AFP.

He said 136 IS fighting positions, 18 tunnels and 26 car bombs were destroyed.
Defence ministers from 13 countries of the coalition, including Carter, will meet in Paris today to take stock of the offensive and discuss possible scenarios following a recapture of the city.
NATO defence ministers are set to meet in Brussels tomorrow.

The offensive, launched on October 17, aims to retake towns and villages surrounding Mosul before elite troops breach the city to engage die-hard jihadists in street-to-street fighting.

On the eastern side of Mosul yesterday, federal troops were battling IS in Qaraqosh, formerly Iraq's largest Christian town.

Forces entered the town for the third day running but armoured convoys around it were shelled from inside the town, an AFP correspondent said.

Federal forces also scored gains on the southern front where they have been making speedy progress, taking village after village as they work their way up the Tigris Valley.

On the northern front, peshmerga forces were closing in on the IS-held town of Bashiqa.
Turkey, which has a base in the area, said Sunday it had provided artillery support following a peshmerga request.

The presence of Turkish troops on Iraqi soil is deeply unpopular in Baghdad and the Joint Operations Command yesterday vehemently denied any Turkish participation.

But AFP reporters near Bashiqa said artillery fire from the Turkish base had been sighted several times since the Mosul operation began a week ago.

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(Published 25 October 2016, 08:41 IST)

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