NAWARAN: Elite Iraqi forces on Thursday retook a town on the eastern edge of Mosul while Kurdish peshmerga opened a new front in the offensive to wrest back the jihadists’ last bastion in Iraq.

The counter-terrorism service (CTS), Iraq’s best-trained and most battle-seasoned force, retook full control of Bartalla, a town that lies less than 15 kms east of Mosul.

“I announce to the people of Bartalla and Mosul we have complete control over Bartalla,” CTS commander Taleb Sheghati al-Kenani told reporters from the town. “Its residents, its churches and all of its infrastructure are now under the control of CTS,” he said of the small Christian town that IS seized when it swept across the Nineveh plain in August 2014.

Further north Kurdish peshmerga forces opened a new front with a multiple-pronged assault on the town of Bashiqa.

“The objectives are to clear a number of nearby villages and secure control of strategic areas to further restrict IS’s movements,” the peshmerga command said.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2016