Iraqi forces advancing on Mosul faced stiff resistance yesterday from the Islamic State militant group despite an unprecedented wave of air strikes by the US-led coalition in support of the week-old offensive.
Federal forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters gained ground in several areas, AFP correspondents on various fronts said, but the militants were hitting back with shelling, sniper fire, suicide car bombs and booby traps.
IS has also attempted to draw attention away from losses around Mosul with attacks on Iraqi forces elsewhere in the country, the latest coming on Sunday near the Jordanian border.
Following a weekend visit to Iraq by US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter, American officials said the coalition was providing the most air support yet to the operation.
“One week into Mosul operation, all objectives met thus far, and more coalition air strikes than any other 7-day period of war against ISIL (IS),” Brett McGurk, the top US envoy to the 60-nation coalition, wrote on social media.
“There were 32 strikes with 1,776 munitions delivered” against IS targets between October 17 and 23, coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian said.
He said those strikes had destroyed 136 IS fighting positions, 18 tunnels and 26 car bombs.
The offensive, launched on October 17, aims to retake towns and villages surrounding Mosul before elite troops breach the city and engage die-hard militants in street-to-street fighting.
On the eastern side of Mosul, federal troops were battling IS yesterday in Qaraqosh, which used to be the largest Christian town in the country.
Army forces entered the town for the third day running but armoured convoys deployed around it were met with shelling from inside, an AFP correspondent reported.
Federal forces also scored gains on the southern front, where they have been making quick progress, taking one village after another as they work their way up the Tigris Valley.
On the northern front, Kurdish peshmerga forces were closing in on the IS-held town of Bashiqa.
While an increasingly pragmatic IS has tended in recent months to relinquish some of its positions to avoid taking too many casualties, US officials said the group was mounting a spirited defence of Mosul.
If IS loses Mosul in Iraq, only Raqa in Syria will remain as the last major city under the militants’ control in either country.
“They have made a very good job of preparing their defences around the city,” one US military official told reporters during Carter’s visit.
The coalition estimates the number of IS fighters defending Mosul – the city where IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a “caliphate” two years ago – at 4,000 to 7,000.
The coalition’s top commander, General Stephen Townsend, said on Sunday he expected not all the militants in Mosul would “fight to the death”.
“By targeting the mid-tier leaders, which our special operations forces and air force have done remarkably well, we have caused a lot of confusion” in IS ranks, he said.
“I think it’s going to pay off in the coming weeks.”
Seeking to distract attention, the militants have attempted to hit back with attacks elsewhere in Iraq, including in the remote western town of Rutba on Sunday.
They briefly seized the mayor’s office, captured and executed at least five people – civilians and policemen – and still controlled two neighbourhoods yesterday, army commanders said.
On Friday, IS sleeper cells in Kirkuk joined up with gunmen infiltrating the northern city to launch a brazen raid that saw the militants attack several government buildings.
The attack sparked clashes that lasted three days as security forces imposed a curfew to hunt down attackers holed up in several buildings across the city.
The provincial governor, Najmeddin Karim, said yesterday that the attack was over and life was returning to normal.
He said more than 74 IS militants were killed in the violence, which also left at least 46 other people dead, most of them members of the security forces.