Iraqi forces attack IS-held town in campaign for Mosul

Iraqi security forces on Thursday clashed with Islamic State (IS) militants in a town near Mosul, in continue efforts to seize more ground around the city, a security source said.

Early Thursday, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Iraqi anti-terrorism commandos advanced from the north and east of Mosul, a Kurdish security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

In the east of Mosul, the troops, with air cover by a U.S.-led coalition, attacked the town of Bartillah from the eastern edge, the source said.

The assault on Bartillah was preceded by heavy artillery mortar shelling, the source said.

Other Peshmerga fighters recaptured the villages of Nawran and Barmia to the northeast of Mosul, while other troops advanced from the north toward the towns of Tal Asquf and Batnaya.

Heavy battles are underway in what is known as Nineveh Plain, which lies to the east and northeast of Mosul, the capital of Iraq's northern province of Nineveh.

The villages and towns of the vast plain are inhabited by various religious and ethnic minority groups, mostly Assyrian Christians.

Many members of the minorities in the plain have fled during the chaos and ensuing insecurity that followed the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Another wave of exodus, of mostly non-Sunni Muslim minorities, came after June 2014, when the extremist IS group took control of Nineveh province and seized large parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.

Early on Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces, announced the start of a major offensive to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city.

Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled. Endit