BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces battled Islamic State fighters for a third day in a remote western town far from Mosul on Tuesday, but the U.S.-led coalition insisted the latest in a series of “spoiler attacks” had not forced it to divert resources from the fight to retake Iraq’s second-largest city.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi acknowledged that the militants briefly seized the local government headquarters in the western town of Rutba, offering new details about the assault, which U.S. and Iraqi officials have sought to downplay since it began on Sunday.
The White House envoy to the U.S.-led coalition battling IS insisted the militants’ strategy was failing, saying there had been “no diversion whatsoever” of forces taking part in the Mosul operation, which is expected to take weeks, if not months.
“Daesh is trying to launch spoiler attacks,” Brett McGurk told reporters at a Baghdad news conference, using the Arabic acronym for IS. “This was expected, it’s planned for, and we can expect more of it.”
The complex assault on Rutba, located hundreds of miles south of Mosul, is just the latest IS attempt to try to divert Iraqi military resources from the fight for the militants’ last major urban bastion in Iraq. Last week the group launched a similar attack in and around the northern city of Kirkuk, some 100 miles southeast of Mosul, igniting gun battles that lasted two days and killed at least 80 people.
McGurk said the militant attacks on Rutba were carried out by “small, isolated teams” and were “easily defeatable.”
The Iraqi military has insisted throughout the Rutba assault that the situation is under control, without offering further details.
Al-Abadi acknowledged Tuesday the militants did have some initial battlefield successes at the start of the offensive Sunday. “They took control, it’s true, of the municipal headquarters,” the Iraqi prime minister told reporters. But he said Iraqi security forces drove them out “within hours” and had regained control of the town.
However, Rajeh Barakat, an Anbar provincial councilman who sits on the security committee, said earlier Tuesday that IS fighters were still clashing with security forces in two southern neighborhoods of Rutba.
Near Mosul, fighting continued Tuesday in a belt of towns to the north, east and south of the city. Maj. Gen. Haider Fadhil said the Iraqi special forces had reached a village some four miles from the eastern edge of Mosul.
Around 335 civilians were evacuated to a refugee camp from the village of Tob Zawa, about 5 1/2 miles from Mosul, which was retaken by special forces on Monday, Fadhil said. He said the civilians were relocated to protect them from IS shelling.
The U.S. is also providing ground support, with more than 100 American soldiers embedded with Iraqi units and hundreds more working in staging bases.
