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IRAQI FORCES BATTLED today through booby-traps, sniper fire and suicide car bombs to tighten the noose around Mosul, while also hunting Islamic State group jihadists behind attacks elsewhere in the country.
Kurdish forces announced a new push at dawn on Bashiqa northeast of Mosul where some 10,000 fighters are engaged in a huge assault to take the IS-held city.
The push came with US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter in Iraq’s autonomous region of Kurdistan to support the unprecedented offensive, which a US-led coalition is backing with air and ground support.
Launched last Monday, the assault aims to reclaim the last major Iraqi city under IS control, dealing another setback to the jihadists’ self-declared “caliphate” in Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
The jihadists hit back on Friday with a surprise assault on the Kurdish-controlled city of Kirkuk and two days later security forces were still tracking down fighters involved in the attack.
The dozens of attackers, including several suicide bombers, failed to seize control of key government buildings but sowed chaos in Kirkuk, a large oil-rich and ethnically mixed city.
At least 51 of the jihadists had been killed, including three more on Sunday, local security officials said.
Sporadic clashes continued, a senior security official said, with forces besieging IS gunmen in Kirkuk’s Nidaa neighbourhood.
At least 46 people, most of them members of the security forces, were killed in the raid and ensuing clashes.
Kurdish and other forces were also tracking down jihadists believed to have fled Kirkuk on Saturday to rural areas east of the city.
IS jihadists also attacked Rutba, a remote town near the Jordanian border in the western province of Anbar, with five suicide car bombs, the area’s top army commander said on Sunday.
The attackers briefly seized the mayor’s office but security forces quickly regained the upper hand, he said.
Fierce IS resistance
The spectacular attack in Kirkuk, of a type observers warned could happen more often as IS loses territory and reverts to a traditional insurgency, temporarily drew attention away from Mosul.
But there was no sign it had any significant impact on the offensive to retake the city, Iraq’s largest military operation in years.
On a trip to Iraq to review the operation, Carter met Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Saturday and Kurdish leader Massud Barzani on Sunday.
The United States leads a 60-nation coalition — which also includes Britain and France — that has provided support in the form of thousands of air strikes, training for Iraqi forces and advisers on the ground.
Tens of thousands of fighters, including Iraqi federal troops and Kurdish peshmerga, are taking part in the assault.
Engaged on the northern and eastern fronts, the peshmerga are expected to stop along a line at an average of 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the boundaries of the city proper.
“They are pretty much there,” a US military official said on Saturday, adding that the lines “will be solidified in the next day or two.”
Elite federal forces are also fighting to retake control of Qaraqosh, which lies just east of Mosul and used to be the largest Christian town in Iraq.
IS fighters swept across the Nineveh plain in August 2014, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee, including many Christians and other minorities.
Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, commander of the US-led coalition, said Saturday that jihadist resistance was stiff.
“It’s pretty significant, we are talking about enemy indirect fire, multiple IEDs (improvised explosive devices), multiple VBIED (vehicle-borne IEDs) each day, even some anti-tank guided missiles,” he said in Baghdad.
US military officials have revised their estimate slightly upward for the number of IS fighters in and around Mosul.
5,000 displaced
They believe IS is defending Mosul, where the “caliphate” was proclaimed in June 2014, with 3,000 to 5,000 fighters inside the city and 1,000 to 2,000 in the outskirts.
A French government official told AFP the breach into Mosul, which could mark the beginning of a phase of fierce street battles with IS, could still be a month away.
There is deep concern for an estimated 1.2 million civilians still believed to be in the city.
Several thousand civilians fleeing the fighting and the jihadists who ruled them for two years have escaped to camps for the displaced south of Mosul.
“Over 5,000 people are currently displaced and in need of humanitarian assistance,” the United Nations said in an update on Sunday.
“Population movements are fluctuating as the front lines move, including people returning to their homes following improved security conditions in the immediate area,” the statement said.
Iraqi forces are now fighting in sparsely populated areas but when they near the limits of the city itself aid groups fear the start of a huge exodus.
A million people could be displaced, sparking an unprecedented humanitarian emergency in a country where more than three million people have already been forced from their homes since the start of 2014.
- © AFP 2016.
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I think these operators have a fair argument for better wages. Their level of responsibility and potential stress deserves fair pay.
Another fine example of privatisation.
It wasn’t the just the private sector that made all our lives a misery of strikes unending back in the 70s!
It’s not private or pubic, it’s unionised organisations
They’re asking to be allowed to go to the toilet without being penalised. What is objectionable about that.
I worked previously in another Conduit center – they are a miserable, grinding bunch to work for. all power to the workers here.
I have a big problem with companies like this refusing to recognise unions while treating the minimum wage as a target to be aimed at instead of what it was intended as. When their employees eventually object to their wages and conditions they just shrug their shoulders as if to say ‘who me?’ And while this is happening we have politicians who claim credit for it as if all this were a great thing. Jobs, what jobs?
Compare this workers in a high stress and very important role looking for a rise to an average wage to the Luas workers looking for excessive wage demands for a low stress and unskilled role pushing a button. This is reality Luas workers are living in a fantasy world.
What’s skilled about answering a phone? You don’t think it’s stressful wondering if cars or people are going to cross in front of you as you’re pushing a button. I support both sets of workers in Conduit and Transdev. Enough of this pitting worker against worker bullshit. It’s contributing to the race to the bottom.
Have you compared what each set of works are asking for?
Have you seen the pay increases luas drivers want?
Regardless of anything related to job responsibilities, 999 workers have reasonable asks, luas drivers must think they are operating a space shuttle for the wage increases they are demanding.
Well said Daisy, a good friend of mine who is a driver, has to get up every morning at 4.30 am to start work, I like to think that he and other workers feel it’s worth getting up that early and drive 90000 people a day safely to their destinations, they have a remarkable record compared with general road safety and private motorists.
Didn’t say answering a phone was skilled if you read my comment but their requests are reasonably fitting for the job they do. I think its more stressful dealing with 999 calls for a few hours, I drive a car everyday I don’t find that stressful at all, I would imagine if my car was on tracks I would find it even less so, if you think different your a fool. Its not about pitting workers against workers its about greed and salaries befitting the job role. And Conor cry me a river, that’s the contract they signed up for, some people work 24hrs ie don’t get up at 4.30am but are up the whole night and don’t get the pay they are looking for. Again why wouldn’t you have a remarkable record when its on tracks, all they do is stop and go, there is no comparison to road users.
answering a phone and typing the information into a computer jax .
Answering a phone and having to relaying the correct information clearly and concisely to someone who may be seriously distressed because someone is breaking into their house, their husband is having a heart attack and dying, their house is on fire and their child is trapped or another equally dramatic event. Relaying the incorrect info could be a matter of life and death. Hang up and do it all over and again for close to minimum wage. Not going to save the world but definitely worth a living wage at a minimum.
the wage was set at a level which showed the level of skill required jax.
I thought these were the guys who asked you what service you need and put you through?
by your definition jax that’s the contract these workers signed up to also.
They push a lever , Conor they don’t drive ..
For as long as eircom ran this service, this never happened. Just saying.
Agree totally. They were very well trained, properly staffed & well paid back then. But, since we sold off the country’s best assets, it’s all about quantity not quality.
have your say