US-led coalition strikes airport in Daesh-held Mosul

By Ahmed Qasim and Ali Jawad

NINEVEH, Iraq

A U.S.-led air coalition on Thursday carried out a series of airstrikes targeting the city of Mosul’s Daesh-held international airport, according to an Iraqi military source.

"Coalition warplanes struck the airport’s control towers, which Daesh snipers had used to fire on Iraqi military personnel," Army Colonel Ezzedine al-Andalusi told Anadolu Agency.

"Thursday’s airstrikes succeeded in neutralizing all militants deployed near the targets," he said, without providing an exact number.

"Such strikes have played a significant role in degrading the terrorist group’s military capacity," al-Andalusi added.

In a related development, Qasim al-Rubaie, an army officer, told Anadolu Agency that Iraqi forces were still in the process of securing recently captured areas of eastern Mosul, where they had unearthed a large weapons cache containing sophisticated missiles.

"The militants defaced the manufacturer’s labels so the origins of the missiles could not be identified," al-Rubaie said.

Earlier this week, the Iraqi army announced the "total liberation" of eastern Mosul -- after three months of fighting -- from the grip of the terrorist group.

Last October, the Iraqi army -- backed by a U.S.-led air coalition and local allies on the ground -- began a wide-ranging campaign to retake Mosul, which Daesh overran in mid-2014.