ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The top Islamic State (ISIS) preacher in Mosul appealed for residents in the captured city to take up arms and join the insurgents, as Peshmerga forces pounded the city center for the first time.
“We are fighting against the infidel and that is why we need fighters for this war,” Abu Assad Ansari told worshippers at the Friday prayer sermon.
ISIS preachers at other mosques in Mosul called out the same appeal, residents said.
From the early hours of Friday, Peshmerga forces began pounding villages around Mosul, capturing some, and also hitting the city center for the first time with mortar fire.
“With the help of America, the Peshmerga intended to advance to Mosul from the west and north of Mosul, but they failed,” al-Ansar claimed.
He suggested that the fight against the Peshmerga would intensify in the coming days. Therefore, “men, women and children over 15 must join the Islamic State on the war fronts,” he warned.
On Wednesday, the Peshmerga forces launched a major offensive against ISIS west of Mosul to assist Iraqi troops in their effort to retake the city from the radical group.
Iraqi and coalition fighter jets led that fight by bombing ISIS positions, while the Peshmerga pounded the militants with heavy artillery on the ground.
Iraqi officials had earlier said that the Mosul operation might be launched in spring. They heavy, multipronged attacks on ISIS appear to indicate the preliminary parts of that plan may already be underway.
Kurdish leaders have said that their forces would not get involved in the liberation of Mosul, as they want to avoid igniting an Arab-Kurdish war, but they pledged to assist the Iraqi army in the effort.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that preparations are underway for a coalition of U.S. and Iraqi forces to retake Mosul from ISIS, and that the assault could come by the spring or early summer.
Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Region Security Council released a statement announcing ISIS casualties in recent clashes with Peshmerga forces over the last two days on western Tigris front and the Mosul Dam.
According to the statement, “more than 200 ISIS bodies were left in the battlefields, and a bigger number also were killed.”
The announcement said that two high-ranking ISIS leaders, Salman Abu-Alkhasa and Abu Sleman, were among those killed. The first was the head of ISIS’s special security forces and the latter was head supervisor of Mosul province’s administration.
