As they made their way to Mosul, Kurdish peshmerga exchanged heavy fire on Monday with Islamic State fighters in the town of Bashiqa, while Iraqi forces discovered a mass grave in Hamam al-Alil, filled with the skeletal remains of 100 or so decapitated bodies.
The peshmerga have been surrounding Bashiqa, east of Mosul, for weeks, and began their offensive at dawn. Most of Bashiqa is empty of civilians, and only dozens of ISIS fighters are believed to be there. "We have the coordinates of their bases and tunnels, and we are targeting them from here in order to weaken them so that our forces can reach their targets more easily," Iraqi Kurdish commander Brig. Gen. Iskander Khalil Gardi told The Guardian.
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