By Idris Okodugo, Khidr Khalat and Mustafa Saadi

MOSUL,(AA): Iraqi forces on Monday recaptured a village near the Mahmour district — located south of Mosul in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province — from the Daesh terrorist group, according to army spokesmen.

The village’s capture comes within the context of ongoing army operations aimed at retaking Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, which was captured by Daesh in mid-2014.

“Iraqi forces have retaken the village of Al-Nasr from Daesh, killing a large number of Daesh terrorists,” Feras Bashar al-Sabri, a spokesman for the Iraqi army’s Joint Special Operations Command in Nineveh, told Anadolu Agency on Monday.

According to al-Sabri, Iraqi forces had not suffered any casualties in the operation.

He added that Daesh had carried out several car-bomb attacks — and had planted explosive devices on the outskirts of villages from which they were vacating — in an effort to halt the advance of Iraqi troops.

Iraqi troops, the spokesman added, were now advancing on the nearby town of Al-Qayyarah, which links the Mahmour district with the city of Mosul.

Daesh, he said, was currently using Al-Qayyarah as a base from which it hoped to defend Mosul from the imminent army assault.

On March 24, the Iraqi Defense Ministry announced the launch of a much-anticipated offensive aimed at retaking Mosul from the terrorist group.

Since then, the Iraqi army and Sunni forces have struck at Mosul’s Mahmour district from three directions, while Kurdish peshmerga forces have played a supporting role in the offensive.

Iraq has been dogged by rampant insecurity since mid-2014, when Daesh overran Mosul and declared a self-styled “caliphate” in parts of Iraq and Syria.

Ali Abo Rezig contributed to this report

[Photo: Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi visits Ninawa Operations Command General in Mosul’s Mahmur district, Iraq on March 30, 2016. Photographer: Ferhat Jahan Panah/AA]