MOSUL: Iraqi forces on Saturday retook Mosul’s university from Daesh, the latest key advance in efforts to recapture the eastern side of the city, officers said.
“We can say that the university has been liberated,” Maan Saadi, a major general in the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), told AFP.
The vast Mosul University campus, one of the biggest in Iraq, lies in the north of the city on the east bank of the Tigris River that splits Mosul in two.
“We have done the hardest part... we may recapture the entirety of the eastern side in the next 10 days or so,” Saadi said.
Iraqi special forces, during their operation, also discovered chemicals used by Daesh to try to make weapons, officers said.
CTS troops had gathered in the university canteen. As they unfurled a map of the area, a suspected Daesh drone flew overhead and they shot at it.
The Iraqi forces also found chemical substances Daesh had used to try to make weapons, CTS commander Sami Al-Aridhi said.
The UN says the militants seized nuclear materials used for scientific research from the university when they overran Mosul and vast areas of northern Iraq and eastern Syria in 2014.
Daesh terrorists have used chemical agents including mustard gas in a number of attacks in Iraq and Syria, US officials, rights groups and residents have said.
Recapturing the university would be a crucial strategic gain and allow Iraqi forces to advance quicker toward the Tigris river, from where they will be able to launch attacks on the city’s west, still all under Daesh control, military officers say.
The head of Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) said security forces were close to recapturing the entire east bank of the Tigris, which bisects Mosul from north to south, a gain that will bring at least half of Daesh’s last major stronghold in Iraq under their control.
An air raid during the week targeting a senior Daesh militant killed up to 30 people, residents said late on Friday.
Parallel advances in the southeast of the city on Saturday, led by elite rapid response units, put Iraq’s federal police in control of large areas along the river bank, a spokesman said.
“The Yarimja area ... has been liberated, a large number of Daesh elements were killed, and the rest fled to the right-hand side (western bank),” Lt. Col. Abdel Amir Al-Mohammedawi told Reuters.
Forces had stopped suicide car bomb attacks by firing at them during their advance, and the federal police also captured a field hospital the militants had been using, he said.
The federal police forces were backed by the Iraqi Army’s 9th armored division and by US coalition air support, Al-Mohammedawi said.
A separate military statement said the federal police in the area also captured a highway linking Mosul to the city of Kirkuk, to the southeast.
Lt. Gen. Talib Shaghati told state television the entire eastern bank of the Tigris would soon be under Iraqi control.
“Hopefully today we will celebrate the end of Daesh,” he added.
Advances had slowed in late November and December as troops became bogged down in tough urban warfare after entering the city itself, and Daesh fought from densely-populated residential areas.
An air raid targeting a senior Daesh terrorist on Thursday killed up to 30 people in a western Mosul district, residents said. It was not immediately clear if the strike was carried out by Iraqi forces or the US-led coalition.
Iraq Body Count (IBC), a group run by academics and peace activists that has been counting violent deaths in the country since 2003, said 21 to 25 civilians had died that day in a strike on that area.
Daesh designs to resort to chemical warfare uncovered in Mosul
Daesh designs to resort to chemical warfare uncovered in Mosul
