Iraqi Kurdish forces have seized the town of Bashiqa near Mosul from the Islamic State group, an official said Tuesday, as US-backed militia forces advanced on the jihadists' Syrian stronghold Raqa. Capturing Bashiqa would be one of the final steps in securing the eastern approaches to Mosul, three weeks into an offensive by Iraqi forces to retake the country's second city.
Iraqi troops have also seized the town of Hamam al-Alil south of Mosul, and on Tuesday investigators carried out an initial examination of a mass grave site discovered in the area. Bashiqa was under the "complete control" of Kurdish peshmerga forces, Jabbar Yawar, the secretary general of the Kurdish regional ministry responsible for the fighters, told AFP.
"Our forces are clearing mines and sweeping the city," Yawar said. An AFP correspondent on the outskirts of Bashiqa said clashes were ongoing, with three air strikes hitting the town and gunfire and an explosion heard from inside. The peshmerga said there were still some suicide bombers and snipers there, and that about five percent of the town remained under jihadist control.
Iraqi forces have been tightening the noose around Mosul since launching the offensive on October 17, with elite troops last week breaching city limits. Upping pressure on the jihadists, the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia alliance on Saturday launched its own offensive on IS's other main bastion, the Syrian city of Raqa. Raqa and Mosul are the last major cities in Syria and Iraq under the jihadists' control, and their capture would deal a knockout blow to the self-styled "caliphate" IS declared in mid-2014.