In Pictures

Battling towards the edges of Mosul

The massive offensive is expected to displace up to one million residents from the ISIL-held city.

A member of Iraq's elite counterterrorism forces stands guard in the town of Bartella, Iraq. Iraqi forces have captured Bartella, around 15km east of Mosul. [Khalid Mohammed/AP]

25 Oct 2016

ISIL expanded its attacks on Monday against the Iraqi army and Kurdish forces, trying to relieve pressure on its own defences around Mosul, the group’s last major urban stronghold in the country.

About 80 villages and town held by ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS) were retaken in the first week of the offensive, bringing Iraqi and Kurdish forces closer to the edge of the city itself – where the battle will be hardest fought.

The Mosul campaign, which aims to crush the Iraqi portion of ISIL’s declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria, may become the biggest battle yet in the 13 years of turmoil triggered by the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Some 1.5 million residents remain in the city, and worst-case forecasts see up to a million being uprooted, according to the United Nations. UN aid agencies say the fighting has so far forced about 7,400 people to flee their homes.

An internally displaced family waits at a checkpoint as smoke rises from burning oil wells in Qayyarah, some 50km south of Mosul. [Marko Drobnjakovic/AP]

Iraqi forces push forward in Qayyarah. [Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters]

A woman returns to her village after it was liberated from ISIL in Qayyarah. The fumes in the background are from oil wells that were set ablaze by ISIL. [Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters]

An Iraqi special forces soldier stands in a Christian cemetery inside a church compound damaged by ISIL fighters in Bartella, east of Mosul. [Goran Tomasevic/Reuters]

Iraqi army vehicles drive through fumes from a sulfur plant set alight by ISIL, south of Mosul. [Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]

A member of the Iraqi army prays after the liberation of al-Khalidiya village from ISIL, south of Mosul. [Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters]

Displaced people complain about the lack of food supplies outside a processing centre south of Mosul. [Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]

Peshmerga forces prepare to launch a mortar during an operation to attack ISIL fighters in the town of Naweran, near Mosul. [Azad Lashkari/Reuters]

ISIL fighters torched a sulphur plant south of Mosul, sending a cloud of toxic fumes into the air that mingled with smoke from oil wells. [Marko Drobnjakovic/AP]

A convoy of armoured vehicles belonging to international coalition troops drive during the operation against ISIL outside the town of Naweran, near Mosul. [Azad Lashkari/Reuters]

Iraqi refugees who fled violence in Mosul and internally displaced Syrians who fled ISIL-controlled areas in Deir az-Zor buy food and water near the Iraqi border, in Hasaka governorate. [Rodi Said/Reuters]

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