Iraqi security forces launched a fresh advance on Thursday against Islamic State militants in several southeastern districts of Mosul, where the fight had been stalled for about a month, Interior Ministry officials said.
The Iraqi army has launched a campaign for more than two months to retake Mosul, the second largest city in the country, from Islamic State (IS) group. However, the terrorist group is not giving up a fight.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi met with U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter on Sunday in Baghdad to discuss Iraqi forces' efforts in driving out Islamic State (IS) militants from their stronghold in Iraq's northern city of Mosul.
After almost two months of fierce battles, the Iraqi army has retaken about 50 percent of Mosul city, the second largest city in the country which was seized by the Islamic State militants in June 2014.
Iraqi security forces on Wednesday fought Islamic State (IS) militants in the city of Mosul and liberated another district in the city, while a UN humanitarian organization warned of the humanitarian situation in eastern Mosul.
Fighting between Iraqi troops and Islamic State militants has cut water supplies across a large part of Mosul, where poorer families are already struggling to feed themselves, and a local official said the increasingly encircled city was in crisis.
A suicide truck bomb killed about 100 people, most of them Iranian Shi'ite pilgrims, at a petrol station in the city of Hilla 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad on Thursday, police and medical sources said.
A suicide tanker truck bomb attack on Thursday killed some 80 Shiite pilgrims, including 24 Iranians, at a fuel station in Babil province in south of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, security sources said.
Under a cloud of black smoke, a group of around a dozen children wearing flimsy sandals have gathered to play. Oil wells around the Iraqi town of Qayyara are still burning, weeks after they were torched by Islamic State militants in an attempt to slow the Iraqi army’s advance.
A suicide car bomb attack on a wedding west of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, has killed at least 17 people and injured many more.
Iraqi Shi'ite militias said on Wednesday they had driven 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.
Iraqi forces have retaken the ancient city of Nimrud, but it has been heavily damaged by the Islamic State group, an AFP journalist who visited the site on Tuesday said.
Islamic State has summarily killed 21 civilians in Mosul it accused of collaborating with U.S.-backed security forces, which said their offensive to recapture the city from the jihadists had made further advances.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that more than 7, 000 Iraqi people are internally displaced as a result of the Mosul military operation in Iraq, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said here Monday.
Commanders of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group are fleeing the Iraqi city of Mosul amid the all-out offensive of Iraqi forces, local media said Wednesday.
The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State (IS) in the Middle East must prepare for a mass exodus of militants if the Iraqi city of Mosul is liberated, Australian Defense Minister Marise Payne said on Friday.
The Islamic State (IS) militant group has received a heavy blow when the Iraqi forces reclaimed most of Fallujah, one of its last two strongholds in Iraq.
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