Members of the Daesh terrorist group have begun using heavy weapons -- for the first time -- in the ongoing battle for Iraq's northern city of Mosul, according to Iraqi security sources.
"Daesh has resorted to the use of heavy weaponry in the fight for Mosul -- weapons it didn't employ in the earlier battles for Tikrit, Ramadi and Fallujah," Major-General Fadhil Jamil al-Barwari, the head of Iraq's Counter-Terrorism Agency, told Anadolu Agency on Thursday.
"In the battle for the town of Bartella east of Mosul, the agency seized 155 tanks and cannons, which Daesh abandoned on the field after fleeing toward Mosul," al-Barwari said.
He added that "extensive tunnels" had been found linking various villages on Mosul's outskirts, which, he said, Daesh terrorists were using to move quickly from one area to another.
Early last week, the Iraqi army -- backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes -- launched a wide-ranging offensive to retake Mosul, Daesh's last stronghold in northern Iraq.
Daesh captured Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, in mid-2014 before overrunning additional territory in the country's northern and western regions.
