Iraqi forces launch operation to free IS-held villages near Mosul

Iraqi security forces successfully carried out an operation to free villages from Islamic State (IS) militants in the south of the IS-held city of Mosul, a military statement said.

Iraq's army along with Kurdish security forces, known as the Peshmerga, supported by the U.S.-led coalition air fleet, attacked IS posts at a village cluster scattered in the east of the militant-seized town of Qayyara, 50 km south of Mosul, the capital of Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, said the Operations Command of Nineveh Liberation's media office in a statement.

The troops and their armored vehicles engaged in heavy clashes with IS militants in several villages east of the River Tigris, including the village of Kharaib Jabur, which the troops managed to reclaim, according to the statement.

Meanwhile confrontations continued along the edges of the adjacent IS stronghold of the village of Haj Ali, the statement said.

Clashes in Kharaib Jabur village killed at least 25 IS militants and destroyed four of their vehicles, the statement added.

Simultaneously, the international coalition war fleet carried out airstrikes against IS posts in both the villages of Kharaib Jabur and Haj Ali, destroying one of IS's headquarters, two factories full of booby-trapped vehicles in addition to two car bombs, according to the statement.

Sunday's operation is the first phase of a major offensive launched in late March, where troops managed to reach several villages scattered in the south and east of Mosul.

The latest operation aimed to free the town of Qayyara in order to be able to surround Mosul from both the south and east, before heading towards Mosul in order to flush out IS militants from the city, which lies 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

Mosul has been under IS control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces surprisingly abandoned their weapons and posts and fled. Endit