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 US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS