Iraqi pro-government forces patrol the eastern part of the embattled Iraqi city of Mosul on December 28, 2016, during an ongoing military operation against Islamic State (IS) group jihadists. / AFP.
NINEVEH, Iraq: The Iraqi armed forces Thursday began the second phase of the military campaign launched on October 17 aiming at recapturing Mosul from the Islamic State terrorist group, an army officer said.
“The second page [stage] to liberate the eastern side of Mosul city began today,” Major General Abdel-Wahab al-Saadi, a counter-terrorism forces commander, told Anadolu Agency.
“Counter-terrorism forces this morning stormed al-Karama and al-Quds neighborhoods in eastern Mosul," al-Saadi said.
For his part, Colonel Ahmed al-Jabouri, an army officer at Nineveh Operations Command, told Anadolu Agency that “the 16 army batch stormed Bewiza area in the northern axis of the city after artillery shelling and a coalition air force support.”
Meanwhile, Brigadier General Walid Khalifa told Anadolu Agency that army forces and central police stormed “the neighborhoods of Al-Salam, Eastern Yarmaja and the areas left in Al-Intisar in southeastern axis of Mosul.”
The resumption came after more than a week of hiatus to rearrange the lines and launch the operation on all sides of Mosul to disperse the terrorist group’s resistance.
The first stage of the operation was limited on the eastern part by the U.S.-trained counter terrorism Iraqi forces that faced resistance by IS militants.
Officials in Baghdad have vowed to recapture Mosul -- once Iraq’s second largest city in terms of population -- before year’s end.
U.S. Army Colonel John Dorian, the spokesman for an international, U.S.-led anti-IS coalition, described the Iraqi army’s Mosul campaign -- which began on Oct. 17 -- as a difficult one making it impossible to say when it will wrap up.
