Iraq troops make gains

Iraqi pro-government forces have made gains at the start of a large-scale operation to retake Mosul, the last major stronghold of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in the country.

A force of some 30,000 Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Sunni tribal fighters launched their push towards the city in the early hours of yesterday. The Kurds seized several villages in the first few hours of the operation.

Helicopters released flares and explosions could be heard on the city's eastern front, where Reuters watched Kurdish fighters move forward to take outlying villages.

As the US-backed assault began, one Kurdish general said: "If I am killed today I will die happy because I have done something for my people."

An Iraqi military source said that combat units had inflicted heavy losses on IS forces as they moved in on the Hamdaniya district, east of Mosul.

Pro-government forces have also made gains as they move on Mosul from the south, security sources said.

Meanwhile IS claimed that a number of suicide attacks targeting pro-government forces on the outskirts of the city had suppressed the advance.

The IS-linked news agency, Amaq, reported that eight suicide attacks had targeted Kurdish forces. But the group has not made an official comment on the launch of the offensive.

The United Nations has said the battle would require the world's biggest and most complex humanitarian effort, which could leave up to 1 million people homeless and see civilians used as human shields or even gassed.

France said yesterday defence ministers from the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Mosul and elsewhere in Iraq and Syria will meet in Paris on October 25, reports AFP.

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter will be among 13 ministers who will assess progress in the battle to drive IS jihadists from Iraq's second-biggest city.

Although the coalition includes around 60 countries, the meeting will only comprise Western nations providing air support.

They are: United States, France, Britain, Canada, Australia, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Norway, Denmark and New Zealand.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday said Turkey would play a role in the US-backed Iraqi offensive to retake the city of Mosul from jihadists, saying it was unthinkable for Ankara to stay on the sidelines.

"We will be in the operation and we will be at the table," Erdogan said in a televised speech. "Our brothers are there and our relatives are there. It is out of the question that we are not involved."