Iraqi fighters advance amid US airstrikes in bid to reclaim city from ISIS
Battle rages on as terror group stage counter attack
IRAQI forces blitzed IS bases yesterday as the fight to retake the northern city of Mosul from the extremists raged on.
Government troops and Kurdish fighters advanced amid US airstrikes although the terror group staged a counter-attack.
Iraq special forces Maj Gen Haider Fadhil said Kurdish Peshmerga fighters captured two villages near Bashiqa, to the north east of Mosul, while Iraqis seized part of the town.
It follows a week of battles over a belt of mostly empty settlements around Mosul.
Kurdish forces’ spokesman Brig Gen Halgord Hekmet said 25 of their men had been killed.
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It came as IS stormed Rutba, western Iraq. Three suicide car bombers were blown up before reaching their targets.
It followed an IS attack on Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, on Friday.
Lt Gen Stephen Townsend, top US commander in Iraq, said he expects more.
Meanwhile, Unicef told of its concerns for the 4,000-plus people it says have so far fled from around Mosul.
