Mosul offensive

Iraqi forces have recaptured more than a third of eastern Mosul four weeks into the battle to retake the city from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Iraqi Interior Ministry's spokesman Saad Maan said Nov. 15.

"More than a third of this [eastern] side has been liberated," Maan said at a televised news conference, according to AFP.

A suicide car bomber from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group attacked Iraqi special forces in Mosul on Nov. 12, setting off heavy fighting in the northern city.

The early morning attack in the Qadisiya neighborhood, which the troops entered a day earlier, was followed by a barrage of gunfire, mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades, Iraqi officers said.

Nearly 42,000 people have fled their homes since last month's start of the operation to recapture Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Nov. 9.

Iraqi Kurdish forces have seized the town of Bashiqa near Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as part of the operation to liberate Mosul from jihadists, an official said Nov. 8.

Bashiqa was now under the "complete control" of Kurdish peshmerga forces, Jabbar Yawar, the secretary-general of the Kurdish regional ministry responsible for the fighters, told AFP.

Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces stormed an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)-held town northeast of Mosul on Nov. 7, trying to clear a pocket of militants outside the city while Iraqi troops wage a fierce urban war with the jihadists in its eastern neighborhoods, Reuters reported. 

The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who is reportedly hiding out in the besieged city of Mosul, released his first message since 2015, urging followers to wage all-out war and take the fighting into Saudi Arabia and Turkey. 

The leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has expressed confidence in victory as Iraqi forces entered the city of Mosul where he declared a “caliphate” two years ago.

A spokesman of a Shiite militia said Nov. 2 that its fighters have gained control of a highway linking the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)-held city of Mosul to the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the militants' self-proclaimed caliphate.

A U.S.-led coalition fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) plans to launch operations within weeks to isolate the Syrian city of Raqqa as an offensive in Iraq's Mosul continues, Washington said hours after Ankara said the Raqqa operation should start after the end of the Mosul and Turkey's Euphrates Shield operations in northern Syria. 

The operation to liberate Syria's Raqqa from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) should start after operations to retake Mosul from jihadists and Turkey's Euphrates Shield Operation end, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş said Oct. 31.