Iraqi Forces To Use French Weaponry In Advance On Mosul

UNITED NATIONS, United States, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News -21st Sept,2016) - Iraqi forces readying to retake Mosul from the Islamic State group will be using artillery batteries provided by France, President Francois Hollande said Tuesday.

"The artillery batteries have been positioned north of Mosul and are ready for use to reconquer Mosul," Hollande told a news conference. France announced in July that it was providing the weaponry to the Iraqi forces and sent French military advisers to Iraq for training.

The Caesar truck-mounted artillery has a range of 40 kilometers (25 miles). Hollande said the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier was en route to the area. Iraqi forces have been moving northwards from Baghdad for almost two years, gradually retaking areas over which IS declared its "caliphate" in June 2014.

The IS group seized Mosul, Iraq's cosmopolitan and religiously mixed second city, in June 2014 in a lightning offensive through the north and west of the country.