Most of Mosul Airport Is Taken by Iraqi Forces in Push Against ISIS
23, 2017
MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi forces seized most of Mosul’s airport on Thursday, an important milestone in the broader offensive to
retake the western half of the country’s second-largest city from the Islamic State, Iraqi and allied officials said.
One bombing attack was directed at a five-story building in Al Jumhuri medical complex in western Mosul
that an American official said had been turned into an Islamic State command center.
The push to take the airport, which has been led by the Iraqi federal police, is a promising start to what is expected to be a difficult
and bloody fight to completely evict the Islamic State from the city.
The Islamic State first conquered the city in 2014,
but it has consistently lost ground in recent months to Iraqi forces backed by coalition air support.
Abdulhadi Ahmed of Iraq’s counterterrorism unit said that Islamic State snipers had taken up positions in the air traffic control towers.
Moving south to north, Iraq’s federal police took Abu Saif, a town
that sits on high ground overseeing the Mosul airport, before moving on to the airfield itself.
The runways in the Mosul airport have been heavily damaged by the Islamic State to prevent Iraq and its allies from ferrying in troops and supplies.