Iraq’s Joint Operations Command revealed the killing of 100 extremists fighting with ISIS extremist group with airstrikes carried out by the Iraqi air force in the districts of Annah and Qaim in the western area of Anbar province. It added that they managed to destroy sites allocated for making bombs and missiles in addition to a laboratory for bombing wheels.
Meanwhile, sources revealed that the Iraqi forces managed to control over 50% of Hawi Al Kaneesa district in the framework of the current operation to liberate the city of Mousl from the grip of extremist group. The Iraqi Joint Operations Command said Tuesday its fighter jets killed 100 ISIS members in strikes that targeted western Anbar havens.
The command said the strikes targeted the group’s western Anbar strongholds of Qaim and Annah, destroying booby-trapping workshops and drone airstrips belonging to the group. It added that the group targeted used to supply weapons to cells carrying out attacks in Baghdad.
Meanwhile, Hussein Ali, mayor of Rawa, was quoted by Alsumaria News Tuesday saying that there are more than 250 families besieged by ISIS extremist group in the town (230 Km west of Ramadi). According to Ali, most of Rawa residents had fled the town to the city of Ramadi and more secure areas.
“The families at the town of Rawa have been dyin of hunger, and the group is encircling it and preventing them from leaving town,” Ali added, urging faster efforts to retake the city.
IS held Rawa, Qaim and Annah of the western area of Anbar province since the group emerged in 2014 to proclaim a self-styled “Islamic Caliphate”. Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition jets have regularly pounded militants’ locations at those towns. The Iraqi government plans a military operation to liberate those regions once it finishes its almost seven-month-old campaign to retake the city of Mosul, Islamic State’s largest stronghold in Iraq.
The campaign against IS in Mosul has so far displaced more than half a million civilians, and the Iraqi government says more than four million had been displaced since IS took over Iraqi regions in 2014.
In the same context,  Iraqi government forces took over the western Mosul’s 30 Tamuz (July 30th), making another step forward on its new axis of operations against Islamic State militants.
Nineveh Operaions commander, Lt. Gen Abdul-Amir Yarallah, said the forces recaptured the 30 Tamuz neighborhood and became on the outskirts of 10 Tamuz and al-Haramat al-Thaletha. He said earlier on Tuesday his forces had recaptured a major industrial area.
The developments come as Iraqi forces opened last week a new front targeting the strategic, IS-held Old City from the northwestern direction, having struggled for weeks to invade the densely populated and narrowly structured area from its southern entrances.
Iraqi commanders have reported dozens of deaths among Islamic State militants and the recapture of large parts of districts falling next to the Old City from the northwest.
Earlier on Monday, a spokesperson of the Interior Ministry said ministry forces had killed 3320 IS members since the offensive to retake western Mosul was launched in February. Iraqi forces recaptured eastern Mosul in January after three months of fighting.
Iraqi commanders say they currently control at least 70 percent of territory in the western side of Mosul. Some were quoted saying they expect the city to be entirely under their control before the end of May.  U.S.-backed Iraqi forces clashed with Islamic State (ISIS) militants in northwest Mosul on Tuesday (May 9) in a push to rout them from the city after seven months of fighting.
Iraqi forces opened a new front against the militants in northwest of Mosul trying to push down into the handful of remaining districts held by ISIS, including the Old City.
The new push from the northwest began last week after other fronts in the city's southern districts stalled around the Old City where the iconic mosque from which Islamic State leader proclaimed a modern-day caliphate is located.
A Rapid Response officer said militants hide among the civilians to flee from Mosul but Iraqi forces have arrested jihadists by conducting security checks and using intelligence sources.
"Daesh members have been trying to leave the area by camouflaging themselves among fleeing civilians, but we caught them as we have our intelligence sources. We are conducting checks on all the fleeing families and we arrested a large number of them [ISIS militants] who tried to flee among families leaving the neighborhood," Brigadier General Mahdi Abbas Abdallah said, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.
Trapped in a steadily shrinking area of the city, ISIS militants are fighting back with a barrage of suicide car bombs and snipers concealed amongst hundreds of thousands of civilians they are effectively holding hostage.
ISIS militants captured Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, when they swept across the country's north in the summer of 2014. Iraqi forces have gradually clawed back territory since then, and launched a massive operation to retake Mosul in October last year.
On the humanitarian side, U.S.-backed Iraqi offensives against the Islamic State militants in western Mosul have displaced 435.000 civilians since their launch in February, the United Nations said early Tuesday.
“From Iraq, almost 435,000 people have now been displaced from western Mosul since the start of the military operations on the western part of the city in late February,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson of the U..N. Secretary General.
“Over 403,000 are currently displaced from western Mosul city, while some 31,000 people have been able to return to retaken parts of the city,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, people who remain in Da’esh-controlled parts of west Mosul are facing serious shortages of almost all commodities, as commercial supplies to these areas have been cut since last November, it added.
“Some cases of acute malnutrition are now being seen in infants arriving with their families from western Mosul,” according to Dujarric. “Families who remain in the retaken parts of west Mosul and those who have returned to these areas also rely on humanitarian assistance, as basic public services and market activity have yet to be restored”.
Iraqi government forces, backed by a U.S.-led international coalition, took over eastern Mosul in January after three months of fighting. The total of people displaced since October had been estimated by at at least 600.000.