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MOSUL, Iraq, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Commanders of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group are fleeing the Iraqi city of Mosul amid the all-out offensive of Iraqi forces, local media said Wednesday.
Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, was where top IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his "caliphate" two years ago but is now the group's last major stronghold in Iraq.
The launch of a major offensive to retake the country's second largest city from the extremist IS group was announced on Monday by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces.
"Today I declare the launch of the operation of liberating Nineveh province. The time of victory has come, and the moment of the great victory is approaching," Abadi said in a brief address aired on national TV channel Al Iraqiya.
The Iraqi army has retaken dozens of villages in Mosul, and are planning multiple attacks for Thursday.
"We are telling Daesh (IS) that their leaders are abandoning them. We've seen a movement out of Mosul," said Major General Gary Volesky, who heads the anti-IS coalition's land component.
While Iraqi security forces on Wednesday fought against the IS militants, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces repelled an IS attack on the northern town of Sinjar and killed 47 militants.
In the third day of the offensive, the troops fought sporadic clashes with IS militants in several areas in northeast and east of Mosul, while the Peshmerga forces shelled IS positions with artillery and mortar rounds near the towns of Bashiqa and Butilla in northeast of Mosul, a security source from the Operations Command of Nineveh Liberation told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi army continued their clashes with IS militants at the edge of the town of Hamdaniyah, some 40 km southeast of Mosul, after repeated attempts to enter the town following the militants showed stiff resistance, the source said.
South of Mosul, Iraqi security forces and allied paramilitary Sunni and Shiite Hashd Shaabi units recaptured the villages of al-Bakr, Siewah, Najma, Osmaniyah Rafla and Zawiya while moving north to the IS-held town of Shoura, some 30km south of Mosul, the source added.
Separately, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces repelled an attack by dozens of IS militants with three suicide car bombs on the military positions outside the town of Sinjar, some 100 km west of the IS-held city of Mosul, Brigadier General Luqman al-Khansouri, commander of the town's security forces, told Xinhua.
The troops destroyed the three suicide car bombs and killed up to 47 extremist militants after several hours of fierce clashes, Khansouri said, adding that three Peshmerga members sustained serious wounds and were evacuated to the town hospital.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Chaloka Beyani, on Wednesday warned that, in a worst-case scenario, 1 million people could be displaced as Iraqi forces launch a military campaign to retake Mosul from the IS.
He also said that as many as 700,000 people in Mosul could be in need of emergency shelters.
