Hassan Shami, Iraq: US servicemen were seen by a Reuters correspondent near the frontline of an offensive launched on Sunday by Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq that aims to retake a handful of villages from Daesh east of their Mosul stronghold.
The US servicemen were seen loading armoured vehicles outside the village of Hassan Shami, a few miles east of the frontline.
US Army Colonel Steve Warren, the spokesman for the US-led coalition in Baghdad said: “US and coalition forces are conducting advice and assist operations to help Kurdish Peshmerga forces.”
Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the early hours of Sunday launched an attack to capture a group of villages located about 20km east of Mosul alongside the road to the Kurdish capital, Erbil.
Gunfire and airstrikes could be heard at a distance, while Apache helicopters flew overhead.
“The importance of liberating these villages is that it’s a first step getting closer to Mosul,” a Kurdish officer, Akram Mohammad, said in Hassan Shami.
“It’s also to push ISIS (Daesh) threat away from the Kurdish area,” he said, referring to one of the acronyms of Daesh.
Iraq’s forces including Tehran-backed Shiite militias have also deployed around Fallujah marking a new phase in efforts to retake the Daesh-held bastion, as concern grew for trapped civilians there and in neighbouring Syria.
Rights activists have expressed concern that Shiite militias could carry out mass killings against Sunnis in sectarian reprisals for their perceived support for Daesh.
Trapped civilians
Concern is also mounting for an estimated 50,000 civilians thought to be trapped inside Fallujah.
“We are receiving hundreds of displaced Iraqis from the outskirts of Fallujah who are totally exhausted, afraid and hungry,” said a statement from Nasr Muflahi, country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council. “Thousands more remain trapped in the centre of Fallujah, cut off from aid and any form of protection.”
The estimated 1,000 Daesh militants still in Fallujah are suspected of using civilians as human shields, but the UN refugee agency also said Iraqi forces had blocked supply routes, preventing people from leaving.
In Syria, Daesh is advancing in the northern Aleppo province, being pushed further east following a US-backed Kurdish-Arab forces offensive on Raqqa, Daesh’s de facto capital in Syria.
Raqqa is home to an estimated 300,000 people and residents have been paying smugglers $400 (Dh1,469) each to try to flee after Daesh tightened restrictions on people leaving, the activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently has said.
Around 165,000 displaced Syrians are also trapped between the closed Turkish border and the town of Azaz, sparking UN concern.
“Fleeing civilians are being caught in crossfire and are facing challenges to access medical services, food, water and safety,” the UN refugee agency said.
Heavy fighting between Daesh and Syria rebels gripped the outskirts of the opposition-held town of Marea on Saturday, a monitor and activist said.
Desperate in Azaz
“The situation of the displaced in the Azaz area is really bad” and will not improve as long as Turkey keeps its border closed to refugees, he said.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the fighting had encircled some 13,500 people in the town.
Daesh swept through rebel-held territory in Aleppo province early Friday in a shock offensive, cutting off the main road between Marea and Azaz.
The two towns have been vital stops along a rebel supply route from Turkey since 2012.
