Anti-ISIL coalition's defense chiefs meet

As Iraqi forces were inching closer to Mosul, the Western defense chiefs from the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) met in Paris to review the offensive on the jihadist bastion.

The defense ministers of the United States, Germany, the U.K., Italy, Norway, Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and France met in Paris on Oct. 25, which come a week after Iraqi forces backed by Kurdish peshmerga fighters launched a major operation to retake Iraq's second-biggest city.

French President Francois Hollande urged the U.S.-led coalition to prepare for the aftermath of the city's fall, including returning fighters.  

"The recapture is not an end in itself. We must already anticipate the consequences of the fall of Mosul," he said at the meeting, AFP reported.

"What is at stake is the political future of the city, the region and Iraq," Hollande said, calling for "all ethnic and religious groups" to have a say in the future running of the predominantly Sunni city.

He also appealed for measures to shield civilians trapped in Mosul by the fighting and for "vigilance" faced with the prospect of return foreign jihadists returning home from the Iraqi battlefield.

Forces from the Iraqi elite counter-terrorism service (CTS) retook areas close to the eastern outskirts of Mosul.

"On our front, we have advanced to within five or six kilometer of Mosul," their commander, General Abdelghani al-Assadi, told AFP.

"We must now coordinate with forces on other fronts to launch a coordinated" attack on Mosul, he said, speaking from the Christian town of Bartalla.

Kurdish peshmerga forces are making gains on the northeastern front but federal...