Huge blast heard near Mosul airport, Islamic State militants alerted

Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) A strong blast was heard on Tuesday in the vicinity of Mosul Airport in the western section of the city, with the target unknown until present, a local source in Nineveh has said.

“The blast echoed at neighborhoods close to the airport,” the source told Alsumaria News. “An unprecedented deployment of Islamic State militants was witnessed in the airport’s vicinity, and preliminary information suggest the explosion was at an important group headquarter,” said the source.

Iraqi government forces recaptured the whole of the eastern section of Mosul on January 24th after three months of battles, and are preparing for a ground invasion of the west which U.S.-led coalition jets have built up for with airstrikes targeting IS locations over the past two weeks.

Islamic State has lost at least 3300 of its members and much of territories under its control until the recapture of eastern Mosul, according to Iraqi military officials. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told France 24 on Tuesday that the extremist group’s supreme commander, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had been located and was isolated after many of his fellow commanders were killed.

Losing Mosul could represent the severest loss for the Islamic State which emerged in 2014 to proclaim an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq.