Mosul offensive

Ankara would never take any step that would damage Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu has said in a letter to his Iraqi counterpart, Haider al-Abadi, noting that Turkey would not deploy troops in the area until Baghdad's concerns are assuaged.

Baghdad on Dec. 5 demanded the immediate withdrawal of forces it said Turkey "illegally" sent into Iraq, which is struggling to assert its sovereignty while receiving foreign assistance against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Agence France-Presse reported.

Iraqi President Fouad Massoum on Dec. 5 called the deployment of several hundred Turkish troops inside Iraq near the northern city of Mosul "a violation of international norms and law." 

A Turkish security source said on Dec. 4 the forces would provide training for Iraqi troops near Mosul, which is controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). 

Turkey will have a permanent military base in the Bashiqa region of Mosul as the Turkish forces in the region training the Peshmerga forces have been reinforced, Hürriyet reported.

Kurdish forces attacked the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in northern Iraq on Sept.30 in the latest of several offensives aimed at driving the militants away from the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. 

The assault began in the early morning to capture the al-Gurra heights to the west of Kirkuk in the direction of the ISIL bastion of Hawijah, Kurdish military sources said. 

The second-in-command of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has been killed in a US air strike in northern Iraq, the White House said Aug. 21.
 
The National Security Council identified the slain militant as Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, also known as Haji Mutaz, and said he was ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?s senior deputy.
 

U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter called Iraq's Kurdish fighters a model for the kind of force needed to defeat Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as he made an unannounced visit on July 24 to the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan region.

A US airstrike in northern Iraq has killed an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) operative who was a person of interest in the 2012 Benghazi attack, the Pentagon said June 22.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavu?o?lu will attend a high-level meeting of the international community on combating the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on June 2 in Paris.

According to the U.S. administration, the capture of Ramadi by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) only some 100 km west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad was something ordinary regarding the bigger picture of the war.

But almost simultaneously ISIL entered Syria?s historical city of Palmyra, gaining control over parts of it in the direction of the capital Damascus.