(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Tuesday marks the second day of military operations by the Iraqi army, volunteer Shia and Sunni fighters as well as Kurdish Peshmerga forces to liberate the city of Mosul, the last stronghold of Daesh Takfiri terrorists in Iraq, which they overran in June 2014. Operations to free the city have been the subject of long planning, and the large-scale offensives are targeting the city from three different directions. Below is a series of live updates on the second day of the battle for Mosul.
(To read about military developments on the first day of the operations, see here.)
— Iraqi fighter jets have targeted a convoy of Daesh terrorists as they were fleeing Mosul. A military source told Arabic-language al-Sumaria television network on Tuesday that the Iraqi military aircraft had struck 30 vehicles the previous night in an area close to the border with Syria. The source added that the slain terrorists, mostly non-Arabs, were escaping Mosul toward Raqqah, which is Daesh’s so-called headquarters in Syria.
— Hissam Abaar, a member of the Nineveh Provincial Council, has said that Kurdish Peshmerga forces are only 12 kilometers way from Mosul’s downtown and are making advances through Khazar region east of the city.
— Thousands of angry demonstrators have marched on the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad to condemn Ankara’s military presence in northern Iraq. The military deployment by Turkey inside Iraq has come without permission by Iraqi officials and has become a source of real tension between Ankara and Baghdad.
Iraqi security forces later moved to close all roads leading to the diplomatic mission.
Prominent Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had called on his followers late on Monday to converge outside the Turkish Embassy in a show of support for the Iraqi army’s operations to retake and voice their outrage over the deployment of the Turkish forces at the Bashiqa military camp, located roughly 12 kilometers northeast of the militant-held city.
— Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), has announced that up to 200 square kilometers were cleared in the first phase of the battle to liberate Mosul, thanks to close coordination between the Iraqi army and Peshmerga forces.
— Camps in Iraq’s semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region are preparing for an influx of more internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Mosul. Thousands of IDPs are fleeing to the Debaga camp on the outskirts of Erbil following the launch of the Mosul operations.
“The more civilians will feel protected inside Mosul, the less they will be displaced. And for those who feel they have to go because it is dangerous, they have to be treated with dignity, with respect in full respect of their rights,” Filippo Grandi, the United Nations (UN)’s High Commissioner for Refugees, said after visiting the camp and learning of the refugees’ situation.
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(To read about military developments on the first day of the operations, see here.)
— Iraqi fighter jets have targeted a convoy of Daesh terrorists as they were fleeing Mosul. A military source told Arabic-language al-Sumaria television network on Tuesday that the Iraqi military aircraft had struck 30 vehicles the previous night in an area close to the border with Syria. The source added that the slain terrorists, mostly non-Arabs, were escaping Mosul toward Raqqah, which is Daesh’s so-called headquarters in Syria.
— Hissam Abaar, a member of the Nineveh Provincial Council, has said that Kurdish Peshmerga forces are only 12 kilometers way from Mosul’s downtown and are making advances through Khazar region east of the city.
— Thousands of angry demonstrators have marched on the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad to condemn Ankara’s military presence in northern Iraq. The military deployment by Turkey inside Iraq has come without permission by Iraqi officials and has become a source of real tension between Ankara and Baghdad.
Iraqi security forces later moved to close all roads leading to the diplomatic mission.
Prominent Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had called on his followers late on Monday to converge outside the Turkish Embassy in a show of support for the Iraqi army’s operations to retake and voice their outrage over the deployment of the Turkish forces at the Bashiqa military camp, located roughly 12 kilometers northeast of the militant-held city.
— Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), has announced that up to 200 square kilometers were cleared in the first phase of the battle to liberate Mosul, thanks to close coordination between the Iraqi army and Peshmerga forces.
— Camps in Iraq’s semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region are preparing for an influx of more internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Mosul. Thousands of IDPs are fleeing to the Debaga camp on the outskirts of Erbil following the launch of the Mosul operations.
“The more civilians will feel protected inside Mosul, the less they will be displaced. And for those who feel they have to go because it is dangerous, they have to be treated with dignity, with respect in full respect of their rights,” Filippo Grandi, the United Nations (UN)’s High Commissioner for Refugees, said after visiting the camp and learning of the refugees’ situation.
