ISIS puts up tough fight as coalition jets pound Mosul

An Iraqi Army personnel flashes the victory sign as they enter the village of al-Khuwayn, south of Mosul, after recapturing the village from ISIS. (Photo: AFP)

Iraqi forces advancing on Mosul faced stiff resistance from the Islamic State group on Monday despite the US-led coalition unleashing an unprecedented wave of air strikes to support the week-old offensive.

Federal forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters were moving forward in several areas, AFP correspondents on various fronts said, but the jihadists were hitting back with shelling, sniper fire, suicide car bombs and booby traps.

ISIS has also attempted to draw attention away from losses around Mosul with attacks on Iraqi forces elsewhere in the country, the latest coming on Sunday near the Jordanian border. Following a weekend visit to Iraq by US secretary of defence

Ashton Carter, American officials said the coalition was providing the most air support yet to the operation.

“One week into Mosul operation, all objectives met thus far, and more coalition air strikes than any other 7-day period of war against ISIL (ISIS),” Brett McGurk, the top US envoy to the 60-nation coalition, wrote on social media.

“There were 32 strikes with 1,776 munitions delivered against Daesh (ISIS) targets for the week of October 17-October 23,” the spokesman for the coalition, Colonel John Dorrian, told AFP.

He said those strikes had destroyed 136 ISIS fighting positions, 18 tunnels and 26 car bombs.

The offensive, launched on October 17, aims to retake towns and villages surrounding Mosul before elite troops will breach the city and engage die-hard jihadists in street-to-street fighting.

Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces on Monday ended an attack by the Islamic State group in Kirkuk city, killing at least 74 jihadists in three days of clashes, the provincial governor said. “The attack is over and life has returned to normal,” Najmeddin Karim, the governor of Kirkuk province, told AFP.

“The security forces have killed more than 74 Daesh (ISIS) terrorists and detained several others, including their leader.”

Mr Karim said the initial confessions of the ringleader confirmed reports that around 100 fighters attacked Kirkuk early Friday, some of them sleeper cells that joined up with militants infiltrating the city.