8 Islamic State militants dead as coalition airstrikes target western Mosul districts

Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Eight Islamic State militants were killed and 20 were injured when fighter jets from the U.S.-led international military coalition bombed their locations in western Mosul as operations launched to retake that area.

A medical source was quoted by Shafaaq news website saying the airstrikes targeted the militants in the districts of Yarmouk and Wadi Akab in the west of the city.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a brief announcement on Sunday that security forces launched an operation to retake the western side of Mosul, Islamic State militants’ largest stronghold in Iraq which the group took over in 2014. He said on January 24th that government forces, backed by popular militias and U.S.-led coalition troops, had cleared the whole of the eastern region from militants after more than three months of fighting.

Recapturing Mosul would represent the strongest blow to Islamic State’s proclaimed “Islamic Caliphate”. Iraqi and international coalition generals had predicted the western part of the city to be fully recaptured within six months, while the United Nations predicted 250.000 civilians to be displaced by the fighting.

Military media said earlier on Sunday that army and Federal Police forces recaptured six villages and a major power station near the western shore of the Tigris River.