Tabnak - As the battle to retake Mosul, the second largest city of Iraq from ISIS rages on, there has been some reports indicating that the Iraqi forces have been successful in tightening the grip on the terrorists in some of their important strongholds, including the Mosul airport.
According to a report published by Reuters, US-backed Iraqi forces reached the vicinity of Mosul airport on Monday after dislodging ISIS terrorists from a nearby hill, the Iraqi military said in a statement. The Iraqi forces aim to take the airport, just south of Mosul, and turn it into a close support base for the offensive into the city itself.
CNN published a more detailed story of the operation, noting that the seizure came less than 48 hours after the start of an operation to retake western Mosul -- ISIS' last major stronghold in the country. Iraqi federal police and the Interior Ministry's Rapid Deployment Force "seized complete control" of the village of Albu Saif, Gen. Abdal Amir Yar Allah said. The village is perched on elevated ground and has strategic value in the push to take the airport.
Furthermore, Iraq’s Joint Operations Command (JOC) stated that Iraqi F-16 fighter jets had carried out ten airstrikes on the Wadi Akab neighborhood of western Mosul, killing 20 ISIS terrorists in the process. There were several bomb experts among the slain extremists.
The JOC said eight militant positions, six workshops used for rigging vehicles with explosives, two explosive-producing labs, a large cache of munitions, two car bombs and two cars loaded with weapons were destroyed in the aerial assaults.
Additionally, the Sulaymaniyah-based Counter-Terrorism Group (CTG) in Iraq's northern and semi-autonomous Kurdistan region announced that the self-proclaimed ISIS health minister, identified as Dr. Salah Hassan Saqlawi, and several of his close aides had been killed in a joint operation carried out by Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the US-led military coalition in Mosul.
In a separate development, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense on sunday released footage in which Iraqi planes and choppers can be seen engaging ISIS in west of Mosul. Meanwhile, according to Press-TV, Commander of Nineveh Liberation Operation Lieutenant General Abdul Amir Yarallah announced that Iraqi forces had regained control over Kantirah and Abyadh villages, south of Albu Seif village on the outskirts of Mosul.
Earlier, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of operations to liberate the western flank of the flashpoint city of Mosul from the grip of the Takfiri ISIS terrorist group.
The east side of the city was liberated from ISIS earlier in January as part of massive operations launched on October 17, 2016, to rid the city of the terrorists who captured it in 2014.
ISIS began its campaign of terror in northern and western Iraq in 2014. Iraqi army soldiers and allied fighters are leading military operations to win back militant-held regions, trying to eliminate terrorists or driving them out of their country.
