US-backed Iraqi security forces captured Mosul airport yesterday, state television said, in a major gain in operations to drive the Islamic State group from the western half of the city.
Iraqi Elite Counter Terrorism forces advanced from the southwest and entered the Ghozlani army base along with the southwestern districts of Tal al-Rumman and al-Mamoun.
Losing Mosul could spell the end of the Iraqi side of the militants’ self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria, which Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared from the city after sweeping through vast areas of Iraq in 2014.
Photo: Reuters
Iraqi forces hope to use the airport as a launchpad for their campaign to drive the militants from Iraq’s second-largest city.
A Reuters correspondent saw more than 100 civilians fleeing toward Iraqi security forces from the district of al-Mamoun. Some of them were wounded.
“DAESH fled when counterterrorism Humvees reached al-Mamoun. We were afraid and we decided to escape toward the Humvees,” said Ahmed Atiya, one of the escaped civilians said, referring to the Islamic State group by its Arabic acronym.
Federal police and an elite Iraqi interior ministry unit known as Rapid Response had battled their way into the airport as Islamic State group fighters fought back using suicide car bombs, a Reuters correspondent in the area south of Mosul airport said.
Police officers said the militants had also deployed bomb-carrying drones against the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Forces advancing from the southwestern side of the city.
“We are attacking DAESH [Islamic State] from multiple fronts to distract them and prevent them regrouping,” said Police Captain Amir Abdul Kareem, whose units were fighting near the Ghozlani military base. “It’s the best way to knock them down quickly.”
Western advisers supporting Iraqi forces were seen about 2km away from the front line to the southwest of Mosul, a Reuters correspondent said.
Iraqi forces last month ousted the Islamic State group from eastern Mosul and embarked on a new offensive against the militant group in densely populated western Mosul this week.
US special forces in armored vehicles positioned near Mosul airport yesterday looked on as Iraqi troops advanced and a helicopter strafed suspected Islamic State positions.
Counterterrorism troops fought their way inside the Ghozlani military base, which includes barracks and training grounds close to the Baghdad-Mosul highway, a spokesman said.
The airport and the base, captured by Islamic State group fighters when they overran Mosul in June 2014, have been heavily damaged by US-led airstrikes intended to wear down the militants ahead of the offensive, a senior Iraqi official said.
The US military commander in Iraq has said he believes US-backed forces will retake both of the Islamic State group’s urban bastions — the other is the Syrian city of Raqqa — within the next six months.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)