Mosul offensive

In June, 2014, the instructions were clear: Stay away from Mosul. The city, Iraq's second largest, had just been captured by the so-called Islamic State, whose fighters faced virtually no resistance in doing so.

Iraqi forces have retaken almost all of Tal Afar, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL) stronghold in the country's northwest, the Iraqi military said on Aug. 27.

Turkey and Iraq will discuss the issue of the Bashiqa military camp, which has Turkish troops, close to Mosul, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Aug. 23. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu is set to pay an official visit to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Aug. 23, on the same day as U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis is set to visit Turkey.

Çavuşoğlu's visit was planned in order to lay grounds for a scheduled visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to Turkey. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu is set to pay an official visit to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Aug. 23 in order to lay grounds for a scheduled visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to Turkey. 

Iraqi security forces launched an offensive to take back the city of Tal Afar on Aug. 20, their next objective in the U.S.-backed campaign to defeat Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said.

"You either surrender, or die," Abadi said in a televised speech announcing the offensive, addressing the militants. 

Referring to an anticipated visit by a Turkish delegation to Iraq, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on Wednesday that the “imminent” withdrawal of Turkish troops stationed in Iraq.

“A Turkish delegation will soon visit Iraq to discuss arrangements for the removal of Turkish forces in Iraq,” Abadi said.

Mosul, the second largest Iraqi city, has recently been liberated from the Islamic State (IS) control. When the terror outfit captured the city three years ago, top IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi said: "Come to me, I will give you a new Caliphate." Although Russia announced in June that al-Baghdadi was killed in an air-strike, a Kurd leader recently claimed that he is still alive.

Adel, 15, hasn't seen his parents for the past nine months, but that was the price to pay to escape the brutal rule of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists in his northern Iraqi hometown.

Iraqi counterterrorism units reported on July 15 that they had detained 20 female Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, including three Turkish citizens, captured in a secret tunnel discovered under the Old City neighborhood of Quleiat in Mosul.