Iraqi-Led Forces Battle ISIS In Push To Free Christian Town

Kurdish Pershmerga forces in the push to free Mosul actually wanted a political plan -- not just a military plan -- to help retake the city from ISIS, Iraqi Kurdish President Massoud Barzani said.

"We would have loved to have a political plan along with a military plan, how to manage Mosul, how to administer Mosul, because Mosul has a variety of religions, with ethnicities," Barzani said. 

 

But he acknowledged that probably "would have taken a longer time."

 

The operation to free Mosul from two years of ISIS rule marks the first time Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi forces have fought against a common enemy, Barzani said. 

 

"We are looking for a good solution for Mosul," he said. But the battle to free it could be marked with months of bloody fighting.

 

On the road to Mosul, Iraqi-led forces have besieged a Christian town in an attempt to liberate it from ISIS control, but they are facing fierce resistance and exchanging heavy gunfire with the militants, a paramilitary general said.

 

Iraqi security forces, Peshmerga fighters and a Christian paramilitary group have forced ISIS fighters into the center of Qaraqosh, where airstrikes are pounding the militants, in apparent coalition support of the assault, Gen. Amr Shamoun from the Christian militia group said. 

 

It's the latest clash with ISIS militants in an aggressive push toward Mosul by a coalition of around 94,000 people, aimed at unshackling the strategic city from more than two years of brutal ISIS control.

 

Iraqi soldiers patrol a checkpoint as oil wells burn outside Qayyara on Wednesday, October 19. An Iraqi-led offensive has begun to retake Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the last bastion of power for ISIS in the country.  

 

The operation in Qaraqosh has been complicated, as ISIS apparently brought civilians into the town, which was abandoned after the militants took control of it in 2014. Part of Qaraqosh has already been liberated, Shamoun said.

 

Qaraqosh is just one town coalition forces are trying to liberate. The Iraqi army's armored division is closing in on Mosul's fringes after sweeping through enemy-controlled land in the past two days, freeing communities village by village, the division's commander said.

 

 

Source: CNN