Iraq Makes Swift Territorial Gains Against IS in Mosul

[TomSea]

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Iraq Makes Swift Territorial Gains Against IS in Mosul
Posted 2017-01-14 20:11 GMT

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi forces have won a string of swift territorial gains in Mosul in the fight against the Islamic State group after months of slow progress. Government troops retook the eastern edge of a third bridge in Mosul Saturday and a cluster of buildings inside Mosul university, according to a senior Iraqi officer overseeing the operation.

IS fighters overran Mosul in the summer of 2014, announcing from there their self-styled "caliphate" after taking a large swath of Iraq and Syria in a lightning surge. Access to the city's central bank, a large taxable civilian population and nearby oilfields quickly made IS the world's wealthiest terrorist group.

Yet even as a punishing campaign of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes has pushed the militants underground, IS leaders continued to use Mosul as a key logistical hub for planning meetings. If recaptured by the Iraqi forces, IS territory in Iraq that once stretched across a third of the country would be reduced to small pockets in the north and west that troops will likely be able to mop up relatively quickly.

Iraqi forces now control the eastern sides of three of the city's five bridges that span the Tigris river connecting Mosul's east to west. Warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition bombed the city's bridges late last year in an effort to isolate IS fighters in the city's east by disrupting resupply routes.

Continued: http://aina.org/news/20170114151134.htm