Mosul

An Islamic State Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) suspect who returned to Turkey after defecting from the group has been released from detention because he had a "fixed residence."

Up to 500,000 civilians in Mosul face a "catastrophic" drinking water shortage as Iraqi forces advance on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the city, the United Nations warned on Nov. 30.

A spokesman of a Shiite militia said Nov. 2 that its fighters have gained control of a highway linking the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)-held city of Mosul to the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the militants' self-proclaimed caliphate.

Turkey sent a delegation to Baghdad on Oct. 17 for talks with the Iraqi administration, aiming for Baghdad to reconsider its objection to Turkish troops stationed in northern Iraq.

Turkey has sent a delegation to Baghdad for talks in an effort to convince Iraq to reconsider its objection to the presence of Turkish troops in northern Iraq, as Turkey's president vowed that Ankara will not be excluded from an operation launched to retake Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Turkey on Dec. 19 said it would "continue" to pull its troops out of northern Iraq after US President Barack Obama urged President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an to do so in order to de-escalate tensions with Baghdad over the deployment.
 

Turkey said in a written statement on Dec. 8 that the number of its troops training volunteers near Mosul would be set following talks between the two countries' defense ministers, in a bid to defuse three days of tension between the two neighboring countries. 

The Turkish military training base near the Bashiqa district of Mosul, north of Iraq, was first established with the final aim of liberating Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL). A total of 2,044 people, half of them Iraqi Kurdish fighters, have been trained there since March 2015, according to ranking official Turkish sources.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadist group made $11 million per month from "organised crime" in Iraq's Nineveh province before seizing it and capital city Mosul, a parliamentary report obtained by AFP says.

Sunnis in Iraq do not trust the central government in Baghdad, the country?s deputy president has claimed.

Usama al-Nujayfi - a prominent Sunni - made the claim on June 9, which coincided with the first anniversary of the fall of the northern province of Mosul to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists.