Iraqi troops closing in on Mosul; deaths at 80

U.S. defense chief in Baghdad for a look

An Iraqi special forces soldier wears a mask Saturday at a checkpoint south of Mosul as the sky fills with smoke and gas fumes from oil and sulfur-plant fires set by Islamic State militants. The noxious air is causing breathing difficulties for civilians and Iraqi forces advancing on the city.
An Iraqi special forces soldier wears a mask Saturday at a checkpoint south of Mosul as the sky fills with smoke and gas fumes from oil and sulfur-plant fires set by Islamic State militants. The noxious air is causing breathing difficulties for civilians and Iraqi forces advancing on the city.

BARTELLA, Iraq -- The Iraqi army pushed into a town near the Islamic State-held city of Mosul on Saturday, a day after dozens of Islamic State militants stormed into the northern city of Kirkuk, setting off two days of clashes and killing at least 80 people, mostly security force members.

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AP

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter arrives Saturday in Baghdad for talks on the offensive to retake Mosul in northern Iraq.

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AP

The Church of Saint Shmoni in Bartella, Iraq, damaged by Islamic State militants during their occupation of the town east of Mosul, is shown Saturday.

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AP

Iraqi and Kurdish forces hold an Islamic State flag found in the town of Bartella, Iraq, on Saturday. Iraqi forces retook Bartella, around 15 kilometers east of Mosul, earlier this week but are still facing pockets of resistance in the area.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, meanwhile, met with Iraq's prime minister and commanders in Baghdad to discuss the offensive to retake Mosul, which the United States is supporting with airstrikes and advisers on the ground.

The Iraqi army said the 9th Division has pushed into the town of Hamdaniyah, also known as Qaraqosh and Bakhdida, and raised the flag over its government compound, but the troops were likely still facing resistance in and around the town. Similar past announcements have often proved premature.

The town is about 12 miles from Mosul. Iraqi forces launched a wide-scale offensive last week aimed at retaking Mosul, the country's second-largest city, which fell to the Islamic State in 2014. It is the largest operation undertaken by Iraqi forces since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and is expected to take weeks, if not months.

Hamdaniyah is believed to be largely uninhabited. The Islamic State has heavily mined the approaches to Mosul, and Iraqi forces have had to contend with roadside bombs, snipers and suicide truck bombs as they move closer to the city.

The Islamic State said it foiled an attack on Hamdaniyah and seized vehicles and weapons left by retreating Shiite militiamen. The claim, carried by the extremist group's Aamaq news agency, could not be confirmed.

Iraqi forces retook the town of Bartella, about 9 miles east of Mosul, last week, but are still facing pockets of resistance in the area.

In Kirkuk, meanwhile, some fighting continued a day after the Islamic State assault on the city, some 100 miles southeast of Mosul. The wave of attacks in and around Kirkuk appeared to be an attempt to divert attention from Mosul.

Brig. Gen. Khattab Omer of the Kirkuk police said at least 80 people were killed in the assault, mainly Kurdish security forces. Another 170 were wounded, he said, adding that a sundown curfew has been imposed on the city.

The Kurds assumed control of Kirkuk in 2014, when the Iraqi army and police crumbled in the face of a lightning Islamic State advance across northern Iraq.

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the Kirkuk assault was a terrorist attack and not a military breach.

"Nearly all the terrorists who entered Kirkuk have been eliminated, and we have full control, except for maybe one area where they are being flushed out," he said after meeting with Carter.

As the assault on Kirkuk was underway, an airstrike hit a funeral procession in the town of Daquq to the south, killing 17 people, mainly women and children, and wounding another 50, said Daquq Mayor Amir Khodakram. He said it was not clear who carried out the airstrike and that officials have opened an investigation.

The Russian Defense Ministry blamed the strike on the U.S.-led coalition, saying it had "all the signs of a war crime." Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman for the ministry, said two jets were involved in the raid, and apparently mistook the procession for a gathering of militants.

The U.S. military in Baghdad could not immediately be reached for comment.

Carter's visit to Baghdad occurred two days after a U.S. service member was killed outside Mosul, underscoring the risk that U.S. troops are taking as they advise Iraqi forces in the fight.

More than 4,800 U.S. troops are in Iraq, and there are more than 100 U.S. special operations troops operating with Iraqi units. Hundreds more American troops are playing a support role in staging bases farther from the front lines.

Elsewhere in Iraq, a burning sulfur plant south of Mosul that was torched by the Islamic State is releasing large amounts of noxious gas into the atmosphere, draping towns in toxic smoke.

The air has turned a grayish color as it mixes with smoke from earlier oil-well fires set by the militants. The fumes make breathing difficult, with residents saying they are suffering from coughing, headaches and nosebleeds from as far as 18 miles away. A small hospital has treated about 250 people for breathing difficulties.

Two U.S. military officials said that while the fire was set two days ago, the winds shifted earlier Saturday, sending the smoke south toward Qayara West airfield, a staging area for the Mosul offensive. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

They said troops at the base were wearing protective masks because of the breathing concerns, and estimated it could take two to three days to put the fire out.

Turkey not invited

Carter's push for Iraq to let Turkey play a role in the Mosul battle -- a plan determined a day earlier when he met with Turkish leaders in Ankara -- encountered resistance Saturday from al-Abadi.

Carter and the Turks made "an agreement in principle" for a Turkish role. Carter stressed at the time that any final decision would be up to the Iraqis, while expressing optimism the Turks and Iraqis could settle their differences.

But al-Abadi stressed that his country's forces will oust Islamic State militants from the northern city.

"I know that the Turks want to participate, we tell them thank you, this is something the Iraqis will handle and the Iraqis will liberate Mosul and the rest of the territories," al-Abadi said through a translator after meeting with the Pentagon chief in Baghdad.

Iraqi, Kurdish and other local forces will handle the battle, al-Abadi said.

"We don't have any problems," he said, adding that if help is needed, "we will ask for it from Turkey or from other regional countries."

He acknowledged that both sides have made recommendations and that they will meet again, suggesting that the door may still be open to some compromise.

Carter, who arrived in Iraq on Saturday to meet with his commanders and assess the progress in the opening days of the Mosul operation, told reporters after his Baghdad meeting that the issue of a Turkish role in the military campaign is a difficult subject.

The U.S. role "is to work with our partners in the coalition and the Iraqi government to try to resolve issues like this and make sure that we're all focused" on fighting the Islamic State. "I am confident that we can play a constructive role there."

Ready to read

The Pentagon is sending dozens of additional intelligence analysts to Iraq to pore over a trove of information that is expected to be recovered in the offensive to recapture Mosul from the Islamic State.

The analysts will have several immediate priorities: share with the Iraqi military any information crucial to the unfolding fight in Mosul; pass along insights useful to U.S. officials planning an attack on Raqqa, the Islamic State's unofficial capital in eastern Syria; hunt for clues about the location of the group's shadowy leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; and search for any information about terrorist cells in Europe and any attacks they may be plotting.

Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky, commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, has called Mosul the Islamic State's Iraqi "crown jewel." Noting that the militants had been entrenched there for more than two years, he added Wednesday, "Clearly, there's going to be intelligence that will be able to be exploited."

European intelligence and counterterrorism officials said they were eagerly awaiting data gleaned from computer hard drives, cellphones, recruiting files and other sources after Iraqi forces advance into the city in coming weeks. These officials fear an influx of foreign fighters fleeing the campaigns against Mosul and Raqqa.

Information recovered from two earlier military operations against the Islamic State -- one in eastern Syria in May 2015 and another from more recent fighting in Manbij, Syria -- gave U.S. and allied officials trenchant insights into the Islamic State's leadership structure and its financing and recruiting. Forces have also recovered detailed records of many of the 40,000 fighters from more than 120 countries who have poured into Syria and Iraq to fight for the group.

"If we get a phone off of a dead [Islamic State] fighter in Manbij and it has a number of telephone numbers into a particular capital or city around the world, we share that information with the coalition members so that they can conduct their own investigation," Brett McGurk, President Barack Obama's envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, said this month. "This is now really starting to work at light speed, although we want to speed it up."

It is unclear whether Islamic State leaders in Mosul will try to destroy any of their electronic or paper records before Iraqi forces and their U.S. advisers can seize them. The Islamic State maintains prodigious and meticulous records, and it is not known if the leaders would take such a drastic step.

Information for this article was contributed by Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Emad Matti, Lolita C. Baldor, Joseph Krauss, Adam Schreck, Balint Szlanko, Salar Salim, Maamoun Youssef, Vladimir Isachenkov and Robert Burns of The Associated Press and by Eric Schmitt and Alissa J. Rubin of The New York Times.

A Section on 10/23/2016

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