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‘Daesh retreats from major site in Mosul’

Volunteer forces flash the sign for victory as they sit in the back of a truck near the village of Ayn Nasir, south of Mosul, on December 4, 2016, during an ongoing operation against the Daesh terrorist group. (Photo by AFP)

The Takfiri Daesh terrorist group has completely withdrawn from a major site they were using for logistical and housing purposes in the Iraqi city of Mosul after destroying all buildings there as security forces approached, a report says.

Iraq’s BasNews on Sunday quoted an informed source as saying that the Daesh terrorists withdrew from all the buildings of Mosul University, whose buildings they were using as housing centers and for manufacturing weapons, over the past two days.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the Daesh terrorists had destroyed all the buildings and internal roads on the premises with bulldozers, themselves seized from the Mosul municipality back in 2014, when they overran the city.

The “scorched earth” tactic was apparently aimed at hindering the advancement of the Iraqi forces engaged in operations to liberate the city.

The source said that the presence of the terrorists in Mosul’s residential areas had declined.

He also said that the Daesh terrorists had transferred their equipment to areas to “the right side of Mosul, west of Tigris River.”

Meanwhile, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that the fighting in Mosul may lead to the halt of the delivery of humanitarian aid to the one million Iraqi civilians living in the areas held by Daesh in Mosul and other regions.

It also urged the Iraqi forces to set up safe corridors to allow Iraqis flee the Daesh-held areas.

Displaced Iraqi children, from the outskirts of the city of Tal Afar, walk in the village of Tal al-Zarka, December 3, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

The Iraqi army and volunteer forces launched an offensive to retake Mosul, the last urban area in control of Daesh in Iraq, on October 17.

The northern and western parts of Iraq have been plagued by violence ever since Daesh terrorists mounted an offensive there more than two years ago. The militants have been committing vicious crimes in the areas under their control.

Meanwhile, the director of the Department of Displacement and Migration in Anbar Province, Mohammed Rashid, has said that some 113,000 displaced families have returned to the province’s capital city, which was liberated from Daesh in January.

He told Iraq’s al-Sumaria news website that, “More than 57,000 displaced families returned to Ramadi and over 28, 000 displaced families returned to Fallujah,” the latter being another city liberated by Iraqi forces this year.

Many residents left their homes in Anbar after Daesh terrorists took control of most of the province’s cities in 2014.


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