Iraq's Qayyara oil wells still burning weeks after start of battle

After an operation that lasted more than two months Iraqi troops managed to reach the town of Qayyara on Thursday and expel its Islamic State (ISIS) occupiers.

Qayyara, about 60km southeast of Mosul, lies on the western bank of the Tigris river and is considered strategic for its location on a Mosul-Baghdad-Erbil intersection.

It is home to a number of oilfields, a major hospital, an airbase and a power plant.

The battle for the town took the army many weeks and continuous coalition air support.

Rudaw cameras accompanied Iraqi troops on their advance into the town on Thursday and captured scenes of the destruction inflicted by the war.

The ISIS militants had left behind many documents including the group’s newspapers and pamphlets that chronicle their two years of war with the Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi army.