Iraqi forces achieved the first goal of a new offensive against the Islamic State group on just its second day Friday, capturing the northern town of Sharqat, a military source said. "The town of Sharqat is in our hands. There are still some villages around it that need to be liberated" from IS, the source said.
Residents danced in the streets earlier to celebrate as government troops and paramilitaries entered the town centre and tore down the black flags of the jihadists who had ruled it with an iron fist for more than three years. AFP correspondents saw little damage in the town which had been rocked by fighting, and the bodies of two jihadists in the back of a pickup.
Sharqat was the first goal of a major offensive launched on Thursday to recapture an IS-held enclave centred on the insurgent bastion of Hawija, the next goal of the operation, Hawija is some 30 kilometres (20 miles) to the southeast and one of the last pockets still controlled by the jihadists in Iraq.
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