While it was still night in Italy, theoffensive to liberate Mosul from ISIS by the Iraqi army and counter-terrorism forces. The militia allied with the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Shiite militias also operate with them. Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al Abadi announced it on state TV shortly after 4am Italian time. Iraqi state TV showed a brief written statement shortly after midnight announcing the start of the widely anticipated military offensive to oust ISIS from second city of Iraq. The blitz to recapture Mosul is the largest military operation in Iraq since US troops withdrew in 2011 and, if successful, the biggest blow to date against ISIS.
However, the UN is "extremely concerned" about the fate of the 1,5 million civilians in Mosul and fears that "thousands of them could find themselves under siege" by government troops or become "human shields" in the hands of ISIS. This was stated in a statement by the undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, Stephen O'Brien, appealing "to all parties to respect their obligations to protect civilians under international humanitarian law".
The Kurdish forces of Peshmerga wrested control of seven villages from ISIS in the first four hours of the offensive to recapture Mosul, considered the Iraqi 'capital' of the Islamic State. This was reported by the pan-Arab television Al Jazira.
In the meantime, the Syrian rebels supported by Turkey have reconquered the town of Dabiq, a city in the hands of the jihadists of the Islamic State since 2014, when it had 3.000 inhabitants. A relatively small village in Syria, not far from the Turkish border and of limited strategic importance but with a very high symbolic value because here, according to a prophecy of Sunni Islam, the Muslims of the caliphate would have triumphed over the Christians in an epic "final battle" before of the Apocalypse.
Symbolic to the point that in 2014 the jihadists entitled their English-language propaganda magazine 'Dabiq'. A Syrian opposition commander, Saif Abu Bakr, reported that ISIS fighters put up "minimal" resistance to defend their iconic stronghold, located in northern Syria a few tens of kilometers from Aleppo. The latter city is also today devastated by bombings and fighting after the failure, yesterday evening, of the negotiations in Lausanne between the representatives of the countries involved in various capacities in the Syrian conflict, the United States and Russia in the front row.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces they are participating in the operation to surround Mosul, but will not enter this multi-ethnic and multi-religious city, leaving the task solely to the government forces of Baghdad so as not to stir up tension. This was stated by Kifah Mahmud Karim, media adviser to Massud Barzani, president of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan. Karim specified the task of entering Mosul, in the hands of ISIS, is entrusted to the 16th army division and the federal police.
