ISIS has executed about 40 people who were celebrating the liberation of their village by Iraqi forces, a Mosul City Council official said Sunday, citing local sources.
Around 100,000 people are involved in an Iraqi-led operation to free the key city of Mosul after more than two years of brutal ISIS rule, and are liberating communities, village by village, as they approach their target.
The official said that although Iraqi troops passed through the village where the executions took place — near Nimrud, south of Mosul — they did not leave units behind to ensure the militants stayed out.
CNN could not independently verify accounts of the executions, which were said to have taken place Saturday.
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‘Freed’ and then forgotten
ISIS militants had been hiding in the village near Nimrud and returned after Iraqi forces left. They detained and killed people who had welcomed the troops, the Mosul official said.
CNN has received several accounts of forces “freeing” villages and moving on to the next offensive, without keeping enough of a presence to ensure the militants did not return.
The Saturday executions come after a show of brutality this week, when ISIS militants rounded up and shot dead 284 men and boys as the coalition tightened its noose around Mosul, an Iraqi intelligence source told CNN.
They were killed on Thursday and Friday, and were used as human shields against attacks forcing ISIS out of southern parts of Mosul, the source said, adding that the militant group had dumped the bodies in a mass grave at the defunct College of Agriculture in the city’s north.
The source asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. CNN could not independently confirm the killings.
The executions raise questions over whether Christians should return to their hometowns — two have been liberated this weekend after more than two years of ISIS rule, which had forced them to flee and seek refuge.
Days of resistance
Lt. Gen. Riyad Jalal, commander of the Iraqi ground forces, told state-run al-Iraqiya TV that the town of Hamdaniya, also known as Qaraqosh, had been freed and that authorities were now in the process of bringing back local officials to reopen the main public buildings and plan the repair of infrastructure.
Iraqi forces and a Christian paramilitary group entered the town on Wednesday and faced fierce resistance from ISIS fighters for several days. Forces had pushed the militants into the town center, where they were pounded by coalition air strikes supporting the assault.
Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Maliki, commander of the Iraqi 9th armored division, said at least 50 ISIS militants were killed and many of their equipment destroyed in the assault. His forces now are cleansing the city from IEDs and sweeping buildings in case of any ISIS militant might be hiding in the town, he said.
A community of Christians who fled Hamdaniya and found refuge in Irbil celebrated Tuesday night as they heard coalition forces were on their way to free their hometown.
Church bells ring
A few kilometers to the south on Saturday, church bells rang out for the first time since ISIS seized the town more than two years ago, local networks reported, showing images of an Iraqi soldier ringing the bells in a symbolic declaration the town had been freed.
Iraq officials claimed that some 200 ISIS fighters had been killed in the assault.
The liberation of the Christian towns brings coalition forces closer to Mosul and so far the coalition has made sweeping gains around the city. But fighting is expected to intensify nearer Mosul, several officials have said.
Forces behind the assault on Hamdaniya faced similar problems, with reports that ISIS has brought civilians into the abandoned town and placed them in key buildings to deter airstrikes.
Key battle
A multi-ethnic and multi-religious coalition of more than around 100,000 people have been in a decisive push toward Mosul since Monday, sweeping clear swathes of Nineveh province from ISIS militants. The province is the center of Iraq’s diversity, home to Christians, Kurds, Yazidis, Turkmen, Sunnis and Shias alike.
The coalition’s members vastly outnumber their opponent’s. Up to 5,000 ISIS fighters are in Mosul, a US military official said. The terror group’s supporters put the number at 7,000.
US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter arrived in Irbil on Sunday at met with Kurdistan Regional Government’s Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani.
“I’m here to commend you and your forces. I’m encouraged by what I see,” he said.
A unit of what appeared to be US special forces advisers entered ISIS territory with the very first armored convoy of Peshmerga on Monday, a CNN team observed. It followed a dozens-strong unit of Kurdish armor that was bound towards ISIS positions, placing American forces right at the front of the opening moments of the fight to retake Mosul.
