Mosul-Tal Afar road taken by Iraqi forces

An Iraqi special forces soldier fires as other soldiers runs across a street during a battle in Mosul, Iraq on Wednesday. (REUTERS)

BAGHDAD: Iraqi soldiers are in control of the road linking west Mosul with Daesh-held town of Tal Afar, isolating terrorists in the city, a senior commander said Wednesday.
Iraqi forces have also moved through the surrounding desert to cut the area off from Tal Afar and increase pressure on the radicals.
“We control the road by fire,” said Staff Lt. Gen. Qassem Al-Maliki, the commander of Iraq’s 9th Armored Division.
Al-Maliki said that while his soldiers have not reached the road, they can fire on targets on it, putting it under their effective control.
Meanwhile, two British medics who abandoned studies in Sudan to join Daesh with a group of other students have been killed in fighting in Iraq, the BBC reported on Wednesday.
Ahmed Sami Khider and Hisham Fadlallah died during the weekend, the BBC said, with Khider believed to have been killed in a convoy as it left Mosul.
Britain’s Foreign Office said it was unable to confirm the deaths.
The two men had been part of a group of nine mainly British-Sudanese medical students from Khartoum’s University of Medical Sciences and Technology who had joined Daesh in 2015.
Five other Britons from the institution joined them soon afterward and at least four had now been killed, the BBC said.