Tag: InternationalNews

{Heavy clashes erupt in several areas of Syrian city after ‘humanitarian pause’ announced by Russia ends.}

Heavy clashes erupted between regime and rebel forces in Syria’s divided city of Aleppo after a unilateral ceasefire announced by Russia expired, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The first Syrian or Russian air strikes on Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city before the civil war, since Russia began the pause in hostilities on Thursday hit a key frontline in the city’s southwest.

Ground clashes and shelling, which had continued throughout the day on frontlines, intensified.

The pause began on Thursday, and came after Russia announced a temporary halt to the Syrian army’s campaign to recapture the divided city.

Moscow had extended the unilateral “humanitarian pause” into a third day until 1600 GMT Saturday, but announced no further renewal of the truce despite a UN request for longer to evacuate wounded civilians.

“Members of popular civil committees from regime districts entered the eastern neighbourhoods to try to evacuate the injured but failed,” SOHR head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The SOHR reported fierce fighting in several areas of Aleppo, with three people wounded by shelling of the rebel-held Salaheddin and Al-Mashhad districts.

No civilians were evacuated during the truce, Ingy Sedky, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Syria, said, adding that evacuations were impossible due to the poor security situation in the city.

Syrian state media and Russian authorities have accused rebels in the east of preventing civilians from leaving and using them as “human shields”.

More than 2,000 civilians have been wounded since the army launched its offensive to drive the rebels out of the eastern districts they have held since 2012. Nearly 500 people have been killed.

About 250,000 to 300,000 civilians are thought to be trapped in eastern Aleppo, with dwindling food supplies and extremely limited medical care in underground hospitals that have themselves been hit repeatedly by air strikes.

The UN had hoped to use the ceasefire to evacuate seriously wounded people, and possibly deliver aid. But a UN official said the requisite security guarantees had not been received.

“You have various parties to the conflict and those with influence. They all have to be on the same page on this and they are not,” said David Swanson, a spokesman for the UN humanitarian office.

No aid has entered Aleppo since July 7 and food rations will run out by the end of the month, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned on Thursday.

The UN had asked Russia to consider extending the pause until Monday evening, but there was no word of any extension as the 1600 GMT deadline passed.

Moscow accuses rebels of preventing civilians from leaving, with senior Russian military official Sergei Rudskoi accusing them of “using the ceasefire in their interests”.

Russia is a key ally of Syria’s government and began a military intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad last September.

Elsewhere in Aleppo province, Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels were shelling the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces coalition in several villages.

On Friday, a UN human rights council resolution called for “a comprehensive, independent special inquiry into the events in Aleppo”.

It also demanded that warring parties provide unrestricted humanitarian access to desperate civilians and “end immediately all bombardments and military flights over Aleppo city”.

Also Friday, UN experts said the Syrian army was responsiblefor a March 2015 chemical weapons attack on the village of Qmenas.

{Kurdish soldiers seek to seize Bashiqa, where Turkish troops are stationed, amid talks over a Turkish role in operation.}

Tension is high in the Iraqi town of Bashiqa, near Mosul, as Peshmerga soldiers from Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government begin an offensive to recapture it as part of a major operation to clear ISIL fighters from the country.

Turkey has at least 500 troops stationed in a camp near Bashiqa, only 15 kms away from the latest offensive, training thousands of Kurdish and Iraqi soldiers for the battle to recapture Iraq’s second largest city from ISIL, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group, which started on October 17.

Turkey wants to take part in the battle, but Iraq has repeatedly declined the offer and called for the withdrawal of the Turkish soldiers from Bashiqa.

“I know the Turks want to participate. We tell them: Thank you, this is something the Iraqis will handle,” Haider al-Abadi, Iraqi prime minister, said on Saturday after a meeting with Ashton Carter, the US defence secretary, in Baghdad.

Earlier, Carter said he was confident Turkey would take part in the operation.

“I think there is agreement in principle,” he said after a visit to Turkey. “Iraq understands that Turkey, as a member of the counter-ISIL coalition, will play a role in counter-ISIL operations in Iraq.

“Secondly, Turkey, since it neighbours the region of Mosul, has an interest [in] the ultimate outcome in Mosul. I’m confident that we can work things out.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has given warnings of sectarian bloodshed if the Iraqi army relies on Shia fighters to retake the largely Sunni city of Mosul.

Mosul is about five times the size of any other city ISIL has held, and the push to capture it is expected to become the biggest battle in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion.

Mosul was once part of the Ottoman Empire and is still seen by Turkey as firmly within its sphere of influence.

A senior US defence official indicated that Turkey could provide medical or humanitarian support, or train Iraqi forces.

Turkey fears the operation to retake Mosul could be spearheaded by Shia and Kurdish armed groups that are vehemently opposed by Turkey.

{ISIL claims responsibility for multiple attacks targeting buildings and a power station in oil-rich city.}

A curfew has been imposed in Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk following armed attacks on a number of buildings and a power station, according to security sources and local media.

In one of Friday’s attacks, at least three suicide bombers were killed as security forces foiled an attack on a former police complex in central Kirkuk.

Separately, at least six members of the security forces were killed along with two Iranian nationals who were part of a team carrying out maintenance in a power station outside Kirkuk, a hospital source told Reuters news agency.

Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel Hamid, reporting from outside of Kirkuk, said into the center of Kirkuk there is still an ongoing situation of exchange of fire.

“They [ISIL] started the attack by heading towards the police buildings, one of the former police building and one government building and that the ISIL fighters are still walking around in the streets of Kirkuk,” our correspondent said.

“In two of the neighborhoods, the situation has been put under control, but they [ISIL] are still controlling the Dibis neighborhood.”

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group claimed the attacks in online statements.

Witnesses reported gunfire and explosions, while live footage from the Kurdish Rudaw TV showed smoke rising from the city.

The broadcaster quoted Kirkuk Governor Najmadin Karim as saying that fighters had not seized any government buildings.

The wave of attacks comes as the Iraqi government and Kurdish forces are making a major push to drive ISIL from Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.

Kirkuk, an oil-rich city some 290km north of Baghdad and 180km south of Mosul, is claimed by both Iraq’s central government and the country’s Kurdish region.

{Fourth day of battle to retake ISIL stronghold sees entrance of Iraqi special forces and an advance from the northeast.}

Iraqi forces launched a third front in the offensive to take back Mosul but ISIL fighters put up stiff resistance, unleashing a wave of vehicle-borne suicide bombers, while leaving a deadly trail of hidden explosive devices.

Iraq’s government said on Thursday its soldiers advanced from the south and east, while Kurdish Peshmerga fighters moved in from the north and east on the country’s second-largest city, now under control of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS.

Attack helicopters strafed ISIL positions as Iraq’s special forces entered the town of Bartella, 15km east of Mosul’s outskirts.

“After we break them in Bartella, everywhere else they will crumble,” said Major-General Fadhil Barwari.

He said ISIL had few defences in the town, which was almost completely empty of civilians. “They just left some snipers and suicide car bombs.”

ISIL fighters drove at least nine suicide car and truck bombs against the advancing troops, eight of which were destroyed before reaching their targets, while the ninth struck an armoured Humvee, Lieutenant-Colonel Muntadhar al-Shimmari told The Associated Press news agency.

The deadly defence offered a glimpse at what Iraqi forces can expect as they approach ISIL’s biggest urban bastion.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from Erbil, said as of 2100 GMT on Thursday Bartella remained in the hands of ISIL and the fighting continued.

He reported the area of Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul, also remained besieged and Iraqi forces were fighting to take villages surrounding it.

“This is a very tough fight,” Khan said. “They need to push through in order to open up a road that takes them 10km into Mosul via the highway. The battle is continuing and they are getting very close towards Mosul.”

The US military announced the first American death since the operation began. The US soldier died on Thursday from wounds sustained in a roadside bomb explosion in northern Iraq, though the army did not specify where.

In the areas surrounding Mosul, Iraqi troops can benefit from the use of air power and artillery, whereas the fight will be different once they enter the city, where most of the civilian population is concentrated, Khan reported.

“The closer you get to Mosul is where the civilians really are, and that’s going to be a real challenge for both the Kurdish and the Iraqi security forces.”

The offensive is the largest operation launched by Iraqi forces since the 2003 US-led invasion.

Tens of thousands of troops are involved, while there are thought to be nearly 6,000 ISIL fighters in and around Mosul. It is expected to take weeks, if not months, before Mosul falls.

Amer al-Jabbar, a 30-year-old soldier with the Iraqi special forces, said he was happy to be taking part in the attack and hoped to avenge two brothers killed while fighting.

“I had one brother who became a martyr in 2007 and another who became a martyr in 2014,” AP quoted him as saying. “I want to avenge them – and I’m ready to die.”

ISIL captured Mosul during a lightning-quick advance across northern Iraq in 2014, and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced the formation of a self-styled caliphate from the pulpit of a Mosul mosque.

Mosul is the largest city controlled by the armed group and its last major urban centre in Iraq.

It is believed 1.5 million people have remained in the city, and the United Nations warned as many as one million people could flee in the coming days, creating a serious humanitarian crisis.

{A recall vote against Maduro has been suspended, as opposition leaders say they are barred from leaving the country.}

Electoral officials in Venezuela have suspended a recall referendum campaign against President Nicolas Maduro, a move that further challenges opposition efforts to oust the socialist leader in the wake of a deepening econonomic crisis.

Thursday’s decision by the electoral council came after several regional courts voided the results of an earlier signature drive against Maduro due to fraud allegations.

Later on Thursday, former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said he and seven other opposition leaders had received court orders banning them from leaving Venezuela.

Capriles, who was the opposition’s candidate in both 2012 and 2013 presidential elections against then-President Hugo Chavez and Maduro respectively, shared an image of the court order barring him from leaving the country on his official Twitter account.

“Once again they are wasting their time. Wait for announcements in the next few hours,” he said on Friday.

The opposition blames Maduro for an economic implosion that has seen severe food shortages, a healthcare crisis, hyperinflation, violence and looting in a once-booming country that is home to the world’s largest oil reserves.

Capriles previously blasted Thursday’s decision to suspend the recall as unconstitutional.

“We alert the diplomatic corps in our country that the government today is pushing toward a very dangerous scenario,” Capriles said on Twitter.

The electoral council’s decision was in response to rulings by courts in four Venezuelan states that found there was fraud in the initial stage of the petition drive. During that stage the opposition had collected signatures from 1 percent of the electorate.

“In adherence with the constitution, the National Electoral Council abides by the decisions ordered by the tribunals and has sent instructions to postpone the process of signature gathering until new judicial instructions are known,” the council said in a statement.

To trigger a stay-or-go referendum, the opposition needed to collect and validate some four million signatures from 20 percent of the electorate in 24 states over three days next week.

The opposition needed a referendum this year because under Venezuela’s constitutional rules, should Maduro lose a plebiscite next year, his vice president would take over rather than there being a new election, denying the opposition their opportunity to take power after 17 years of socialism.

The ruling comes on the heels of another decision by the electoral council this week to suspend by about six months state elections that were slated for December, giving the government more breathing room before going to the polls

Polls say a majority of Venezuelans want Maduro gone.

The opposition staged its largest street demonstration in years on September 1, with a rally in Caracas demanding a referendum against Maduro be held in 2016. But apart from that protest, most anti-government rallies this year have been relatively small and quick to disperse.

On Thursday night, opposition leaders started calling for more massive street protests in the face of election authority’s ruling.

“This is the time for national unity,” wrote former presidential candidate Maria Corina Machado on her Twitter account.

“Every single person must take to the streets, with strength and without fear, to make the transition a reality.”

{Filipino president says he prefers “character of an Oriental” after meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.}

President Rodrigo Duterte has declared the Philippines’ “separation” from long-standing ally the United States during a visit in Beijing as he rebalances his country’s diplomacy towards China.

Duterte’s comments came after he met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square on Thursday. The two also pledged to enhance trust and friendship and played down a maritime dispute in the South China Sea.

“I announce my separation from the United States, both in military but economics also,” Duterte announced at a meeting of Filipino and Chinese businessmen in Beijing.

“America has lost it,” Duterte was quoted as saying in a transcript of his speech by the Philippine Presidential Communications Office on Friday morning.

“I mean, I realigned myself in your ideological flow and maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world: China, Philippines and Russia.”

Duterte is in China on a four-day trip seen as confirming his tilt away from Washington and towards Beijing’s sphere of influence – and its deep pockets.

Xi called the two countries “neighbours across the sea” with “no reason for hostility or confrontation”, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The two leaders held “extensive” and “amicable” official talks and oversaw the signing of 13 bilateral deals, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

Philippine Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said his country and China will sign $13.5bn in deals this week. He did not elaborate.

Separately, the Philippines Presidential Communications Office said Xi committed more than $9bn in low-interest loans to the country, with about one third of that coming from private banks. About $15m in loans will go towards drug rehabilitation programmes.

Al Jazeera’s Adrian Brown, reporting from Beijing, said Duterte’s visit was “very significant” and a “diplomatic victory” for China, with the Philippines agreeing to resume bilateral talks after years of confrontation.

“A visit like this would have been impossible just six months ago, when the war of words between Manila and Beijing was at its height.”

Richard Javad Heydarian, a political analyst, said by declaring a strong alliance with China, Duterte is going against the Filipino people’s inclination towards the US.

“A survey just came out yesterday, which says that the US enjoys a plus 66 net approval rating. China has a negative 31 favourability rating,” Heydarian told Al Jazeera.

He also said the Philippine military is “very predisposed towards the United States, while very critical towards China”.

Since 1951, the Philippines has maintained a defence treaty with the US, which pledges that both countries would come to each other’s defence in case of an armed attack.

The White House said on Thursday the Philippine government has not officially asked to end any security or economic ties between the US and Manila.

“We have not received any official requests from Filipino officials to alter any of our many issues where we bilaterally cooperate,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters.

‘Loud’ and ‘rowdy’

Under Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino, the China and the Philippines were at loggerheads over the South China Sea – where Beijing has built a series of artificial islands – but since taking office in June the new head of state has changed course.

“Both sides agreed that the South China Sea issue is not the sum total of the bilateral relationship,” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin told reporters.

The two sides agreed to return to the approach used five years ago of seeking a settlement through bilateral dialogue, Liu said.

Duterte’s visit to Beijing capped a series of recent declarations blasting the United States and President Barack Obama.

Duterte was quoted by the Manila-based website Rappler calling Americans “loud, sometimes rowdy. Their larynx is not adjusted to civility”.

He said he prefers China “because it has the character of an Oriental. It does not go around insulting people”.

Addressing the Filipino community in Beijing on Wednesday, the firebrand leader said the Philippines had gained little from its long alliance with the US, its former colonial ruler.

“Your stay in my country was for your own benefit. So time to say goodbye, my friend,” he said, as if addressing the US.

He also repeated his denunciation of Obama as a “son of a whore”.

Opposition fighters denounce temporary ceasefire as effort by Russia and Syrian government to seize rebel-held areas.

The Syrian military said on Thursday a unilateral ceasefire backed by Russia had come into force to allow people to leave besieged eastern Aleppo, a move rejected by rebels who say they are preparing a counter-offensive to break the blockade.

Rebels say the goal of Moscow and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is to empty opposition-held areas of civilians so they can take over the whole city.

“They talk about humanitarian corridors, but why are they not allowing food into besieged eastern Aleppo to alleviate our suffering? We only need the Russian bombers to stop killing our children. We don’t want to leave,” said Ammar al-Qaran, a resident in Sakhour district.

Syrian state-owned Ikhbariyah television said rebels had fired a mortar barrage near to where ambulances had been heading to take patients from the besieged parts of the city for treatment in government-held areas.

Also on Thursday, a UN aid official for Syria said Russia agreed to extend daily pauses in military action against rebel-held eastern Aleppo for four more days.

Jan Egeland told The Associated Press news agency that the UN on Thursday received verbal assurances for the extension by a day – from three days previously – both from Russia’s diplomatic mission in Geneva and in writing from Russian military officials in Syria.

Egeland noted the UN had already received assurances a day earlier from Moscow that the daily pauses in air strikes and artillery shelling would be extended from eight hours to 11 hours per day.

“We have gotten it extended in both hours and in terms of days,” he said, adding the UN has “a window from Friday at least until Monday”.

Egeland said the UN received “green lights” it needed from Syria’s government, armed opposition groups, and Russia, which announced the pause in fighting that began on Thursday.

He said the UN hoped to organise evacuations of “several hundred” critically wounded or sick people with their families, either to government-controlled western Aleppo or to the rebel-held city of Idlib to the southwest, and deliver medical supplies to eastern Aleppo.

An estimated 275,000 civilians remain trapped in the city’s east.

Putin’s instructions

Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Thursday the “humanitarian pause” has been extended on President Vladimir Putin’s instructions and was supported by the Syrian government.

Putin said Russia was ready to extend the pause in air strikes if the rebels did not escalate fighting. The Kremlin specified that the rebels’ attempt to re-arm and re-group would derail the humanitarian pause.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed anew for a long-term ceasefire in Aleppo.

Merkel said as she arrived on Thursday at a European Union summit in Brussels that she hoped EU leaders would “make clear that what is happening in Aleppo, with Russian support, is completely inhuman”.

“There must be work as soon as possible on achieving a ceasefire – not just one over several hours per day, followed by many hours of bombing, but a lasting ceasefire.”

Since Russia intervened in the war more than a year ago, the government’s side has gained the upper hand on numerous fronts, including Aleppo, where the opposition-held sector has been completely encircled for weeks.

The Syrian army has pressed ahead with a major campaign, supported by Iranian-backed militias and Russian air power, to take full control of Syria’s largest city, divided between rebel and government zones since 2012.

The rebels, however, said they were preparing a large-scale offensive to break the siege of Aleppo.

“The coming battle is not going to be like others. We are waiting for the signal of the start of a decisive battle which will surprise the regime and its militias,” Abu Obeida al-Ansari, a commander from Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, said in a statement on social media.

{Asked if he would concede a loss to Hillary Clinton, Republican candidate said “I will look at it at the time”.}

Donald Trump, the Republican Party nominee for US president, has refused to say that he would accept the election result if he loses, as he clashed with rival Hillary Clinton in their third and final debate.

Declining to be drawn on what he would do, he said: “I will look at it at the time.”

Trump has leaned on an increasingly brazen strategy in the campaign’s closing weeks, including peddling charges that the election will be rigged, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud in previous US presidential contests.

“The biggest issue [from the debate] is his unwillingness to accept the outcome of the election,” the Reverend Jesse Jackson, a prominent civil rights leader and member of the Democratic Party, told Al Jazeera. “That could sabotage the entire American process.”

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Las Vegas, said that it was the first time in three debates that “we saw real policy differences” between the two candidates.

“They argued about them in substantive terms,” Fisher said.

One of the hotly debated topics on stage was immigration, which has been a key issue in Trump’s campaign. He repeated a pledge that if he becomes president, a wall will be built on the Mexico border to stop people entering the country illegally.

After discussing the wars in Syria and Iraq, the discussion turned to refugees in need of protection. While Trump repeated his claim that the US does not know who it is letting into the country, Clinton said: “I am not going to let anyone into this country who is not vetted … but I am not going to slam the door on women and children.”

But D’Angelo Gore, a fact-checker with the website Politifact, told Al Jazeera that both candidates mischaracterised each other’s policy proposals during the debate.

“Trump said that Clinton’s immigration policy was to simply grant amnesty to all the immigrants living in the United States, which is inaccurate,” Gore said. “The reality is that Clinton’s immigration reform is much more comprehensive, including increased border control.”

According to Gore, Clinton’s accusation that Trump wanted to abolish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was also inaccurate, as Trump has thus far only expressed frustration that NATO has not focused enough on “fighting terrorism” as well as the notion that the US carries most of the financial burden.

Wednesday’s face-off at the University of Nevada came as early voting was already under way in more than 30 states – at least 2.1 million voters have cast ballots already.

For Trump, the debate was perhaps his last opportunity to turn around a presidential race that appears to be slipping away.

In an average of national polls, Clinton has a lead at 48.6 percent over Trump’s 42.1 percent.

His predatory comments about women and a flood of sexual assault accusations have increased his unpopularity with women and limited his pathways to victory.

Discussing the sexual assault claims in the debate, Trump said he did not apologise to his wife, because he “didn’t do anything”.

Clinton took the stage with challenges of her own.

While the electoral map currently leans in her favour, she is facing a new round of questions about her trustworthiness, concerns that have trailed her throughout the campaign.

The hacking of her top campaign adviser’s emails revealed a candidate who is averse to apologising, can strike a different tone in private than in public, and makes some decisions only after political deliberations.

When the moderator brought up quotes from a Clinton email released by WikiLeaks in which she seemed to express a stance on trade that differs from what she has said publicly, she quickly deflected the question.

She proceeded to say, “What’s really important about WikiLeaks is that the Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans … this has come from the highest levels … from Putin himself … to influence this election”.

{Turkish warplanes strike fighters from People’s Protection Units in northern Syrian city as intense battle continues.}

The Turkish military said its fighter jets hit Syrian Kurdish targets in northern Syria, and killed up to 200 fighters, according to state media.

The jets hit 18 targets in Maarrat Umm Hawsh, a region north of the city of Aleppo, the official news agency Anadolu said.

Quoting the army, the report claimed that between 160 and 200 fighters from the YPG (People’s Protection Units) group were killed in the raids on Wednesday night.

A Syrian-Kurdish forces leader, however, said that while Turkish jets and artillery were attacking, no more than 10 fighters had been killed so far.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said at least nine YPG fighters were confirmed killed and 26 people were injured in some 20 raids.

Anadolu said nine buildings used as YPG headquarters, meeting points, shelters and weapons depots were destroyed as well as four vehicles.

Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the death toll.

The Anadolu report said the YPG had attacked Turkish-backed Syrian rebels. However, the Observatory said it had no information on such an incident.

In August, Turkey launched a ground operation in northern Syria, targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group and the YPG, and continues to maintain a military presence in the neighbouring country.

The US considers the YPG to be a key force in the fight against ISIL in Syria.

Turkey says the group is an extension of its own outlawed Kurdish fighters – the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – who have carried out a series of deadly attacks in Turkey over the past year.

{{US-Turkey tensions}}

Tensions between Turkey and the US have increased over the YPG, but Ankara has repeatedly said it will not allow a “terror corridor” on its southern border and wants to prevent the joining of the Kurdish “cantons” of Afrin and Kobane.

Turkey entered the Syrian war to try and remove ISIL from its border – which last month Ankara said it achieved – while also aiming to halt the westward advance of the YPG.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Turkey would not “wait for terrorist organisations to come and attack us” during a speech in Ankara.

“These organisations, wherever their activities are, wherever they are nesting, we will go [there],” he said.

{Battles intensify around Iraq’s second-largest city with the town of Hamdaniya targeted for ISIL’s expulsion.}

Three days into the assault on Mosul, Iraqi and Kurdish forces are steadily recovering outlying territory before the big push into the city itself, expected to be the biggest battle since the 2003 US-led invasion.

Units from Iraq’s elite counterterrorism service, which has done the heavy lifting in most recent operations against ISIL, were poised to flush its fighters out of the town of Hamdaniya, officers said on Wednesday.

“We are surrounding Hamdaniya now,” Lieutenant-General Riyadh Tawfiq, commander of Iraq’s ground forces, told AFP news agency. “There are some pockets [of resistance], some clashes. They send car bombs – but it will not help them.”

Explosives and booby traps laid down by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant slowed down the offensive. The Iraqi army said it destroyed five cars driven by ISIL suicide bombers during the advance.

The Iraqi offensive to retake Mosul began on the first day with the taking of nine villages, mostly by Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

“The Iraqi army, not the Peshmerga, are trying to advance into [Hamdaniya]. They tried to storm the area yesterday, but were forced to retreat,” said Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Khazir near the frontline.

“If [the Iraqi forces] take over Hamdaniya, they will be at the gates of Mosul itself.”

An Iraqi officer from the 9th Division told the Associated Press news agency that his troops were now a kilometre away from Hamdaniya, a historically Christian town to the east of Mosul.

Before ISIL’s takeover in 2014, Hamdaniya’s population stood at 50,000. Although most civilians fled at the time, a few thousand people are believed to reside in the town.

In Mosul, meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of civilians were trapped with dwindling supplies on Wednesday, many sheltering in basements.

“We couldn’t sleep last night because of the air strikes. The explosions were huge but I’m not sure what the targets were,” said Abu Saif, a 47-year-old resident contacted by AFP news agency. “Many families are starting to run out of some basic food goods, there is no commercial activity in Mosul – the city is cut off from the world.”

The United Nations said it fears that up to a million people could be forced from their homes by fighting to retake Mosul.

The Popular Mobilization Force, a coalition of mostly Iranian-trained militias, said it would back Iraqi government forces advancing towards Tal Afar, about 55km west of Mosul.

Taking Tal Afar would effectively cut off the escape route for fighters wanting to head into neighbouring Syria, but it could also hamper the escape of civilians.

ISIL forces are believed to be vastly outnumbered with an estimated 30,000 Iraqi army troops, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Shia militias and Sunni tribal forces moving in.

Iraqi forces have significant ground to cover before reaching the boundaries of the city, which ISIL is defending with berms, bombs, and burning oil trenches.

While most of the coalition’s support has come in the shape of air strikes and training, American, British and French special forces are also on the ground to advise local troops.

Some reports suggested Iraqi forces may allow fleeing ISIL fighters an exit to the west in a bid to minimise human and material losses from fighting inside the city.

But Russia’s General Valery Gerasimov said Moscow was concerned about “possible attempts by fighters to break out of Mosul” and “freely leave the city in the direction of Syria”.

Gerasimov said it was “necessary not to drive terrorists from one country to the other – but to destroy them on the spot”.