An alliance of U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab forces launched an operation on the Syrian city of Raqqa on Sunday. An assault there could hamper the militants’ efforts to hang on to Mosul, which experienced heavy fighting over the weekend.
Fighting also continues in Hammam al-Alil and Bashiqa.
The villages of Razaqiyah and Hawija al-Hassan were captured. Also liberated recently were eastern Abbara, western Abbara, Hammadi Kherba, Kherba, Syed Hassan, and Taisha.
At least 155 people were killed and 157 were wounded in recent violence:
A suicide bomber driving an explosives-packed ambulance attacked a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims in Samarra. At least 12 were killed and about 100 were wounded. At least four Iranians were killed.
At a checkpoint in Tikrit, another suicide bomber killed 15 and wounded 35 more. The dead included five students and three policemen.
Gunmen killed 16 people in Tulul al-Baj at the home of a tribal leader.
In Baghdad, a string of attacks left 10 dead and 21 wounded.
In Mosul, a journalist was wounded. Militants using blunt knives executed seven of their own for desertion. A Daesh leader in charge of the war commission and his companions were killed. A second militant leader was killed in clashes. Resistance forces killed three militants. Gunmen killed two bodyguards at the home of Mosul’s militant “governor.” Thirty militants were killed in fighting in a northern area.
Security forces killed 35 militants in Hammam al-Alil.
Twenty-one militants were killed at Haditha Lake.
