Iraqi army retakes north villages, step ahead to retrieve Mosul

Twenty months after the Islamic State (IS) took the country's second largest city of Mosul, the Iraqi army achieved victories in the north as the leadership vowed to take back the lost territory by the end of the year.

On the frontline in the Makhmour district, about 70 km south of Erbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan region, several military vehicles were scattered, burned down inside and out during the latest operations.

On March 26, the Iraqi army, supported by the international coalition, Kurdish forces and tribal militia, launched fierce battles against the IS militants who controlled several villages in this district, about 60 km south of Mosul.

A young man in his 20s told Xinhua on the frontline how they fought the enemy on that day, on condition of anonymity.

The military operation started at 6:00 a.m. local time on March 26, with two brigades of about 4,000 soldiers advancing into to the IS-controlled villages from three directions.

The man's unit was ordered to retake Kadila village, which is four km south of their trench. Following the military vehicles that cleared the roads of mines and explosives, the unit hit hard on the IS militants who were defending the village with heavy machine guns, rockets and artillery.

Several suicide bombers jumped out of their defence trying to explode the Iraqi forces but failed. Many militants threw away weapons and fled when soldiers were coming into the village.

It took three hours for the unit to take control of Kadila, but in other villages, fierce fighting did not quiet down until the next morning.

About 250 to 300 IS militants were defending Kadila, the young man said, about one third were killed and others fled to Mosul. The casualties rose after the battle.

The army entered the village and told people staying inside their houses to put a white flag on their window if they want to be evacuated. Then, white flags were seen on almost every house in the village.

Hundreds of people were coming out of their houses, who were terrified by the fighting and also excited to be rescued. However, several IS militants wearing woman's clothes and veil were among the civilians. They exploded themselves while hugging officers.

"We have casualties who sacrificed themselves for liberating our country from IS militants. We are proud of them and ourselves," the young man said.

He joined the army in 2014, right after the IS seized Mosul and several other cities, when he was preparing to be engaged with a girl in his hometown in Iraq's southern regions.

"I will not go back home to get married until we retake Mosul," he said.

Soldiers on the frontline said Kadila means "melon" in Kurdish, but what happened to people living there in the past 20 months does not sound as sweet as such a name.

The villagers said most of them did not have any income under the control of the IS, nor enough food. Some people tried to escape but got killed by the militants or the mines outside the village.

Farmers cannot harvest the wheat because of the mines planted in their fields.

The IS militants planted so many mines and roadside bombs in and around the villages that the army had not finished clearing the areas two weeks since they liberated three villages during the operations.

A bomb exploded in Kadila while Xinhua reporter was driving towards the village and injured several soldiers. Another powerful bomb blew up after a while.

In June 2014, the IS militants took Mosul with a population of over one million in Iraq's north as well as large territories in the country's west.

During the past two years, the Iraqi army regained control of cities and towns, including Ramadi, the capital of the country's largest province of Anbar.

In late March this year, the Iraqi government announced the start of the operations to retake Mosul by the end of the year.

Top commander of the army in this operation General Najim Abdullah Al-Jubury said "we killed about 500 IS militants in the past two weeks, which is the beginning of liberating Mosul."

"Mosul is the most important city held by the IS in Iraq which provides them with oil, tax and other resources. After we liberate Mosul, the IS in other parts of Iraq will collapse," he said.