Iraqi forces launch operation to free IS-held villages near Mosul

Iraqi security forces successfully carried out an operation to free villages from Islamic State (IS) terrorists in the south of the IS-held city of Mosul, a military statement said.

Iraq's army along with Kurdish security forces, known as the Peshmerga, supported by the US-led coalition air fleet, attacked IS posts at a village cluster scattered in the east of the militant-seized town of Qayyara, 50 km south of Mosul, the capital of Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, Xinhua quoted Operations Command of Nineveh Liberation's media office as saying.

The troops and their armoured vehicles engaged in heavy clashes with IS terrorists in several villages east of the River Tigris, including the village of Kharaib Jabur, which the troops managed to reclaim, according to the statement.

Meanwhile, confrontations continued along the edges of the adjacent IS stronghold of the village of Haj Ali, the statement said.

Clashes in Kharaib Jabur village killed at least 25 IS terrorists and destroyed four of their vehicles, the statement added.

--IANS

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