Washington DC: October 19, 2016. The Islamic State group forced the Iraqi Kurdish armies to slow their strikes Tuesday on the second day of attacks in the battle for Mosul. Mosul is the last main city that ISIS controls in Iraq and fighting started Monday for the Iraqi Kurdish armies to reclaim the area. However, ISIS reportedly pushed back hard for villages east of Mosul. According to its news agency, Amaq, ISIS carried out 12 suicide attacks out Monday. Jabbar Yawar, a spokesman for Kurdish Peshmerga forces, said eight Kurdish soldiers were killed Monday and 16 were injured. Still, Kurdish officials said they reclaimed 75 square miles of territory on Monday. “These villages were small and simple, so we were expecting them to be easy,” said Brig. Gen. Haider al-Obaidi, an Iraqi special forces commander. “Right now we are waiting for the peshmerga to finish their job,” said Obaidi. “We are waiting for them to reach the areas they were supposed to reach under the military plan, so that we can move.” In preparation for the fighting, ISIS has also built concrete barricades and filled trenches with oil meant to be set ablaze. Military experts have said it could take weeks or even months to capture Mosul. Meanwhile, IDC Applauds Efforts to Liberate Mosul, Calls on Coalition to Return Genocide Victims to Homes on Nineveh Plain In Defense of Christians (IDC) President Toufic Baaklini made the following statement: “As the battle for Mosul gets underway, the United States and the coalition must help genocide-designated minorities, including Christians, to return to the Nineveh towns and villages they were forced to abandon two years ago and which now stand vacant and undefended.” It's been reported that Qaraqosh and several other Christian towns have already been liberated. Qaraqosh was once home to Iraq's largest Christian community, with at least a quarter of the country's Christian population living in the city and its surrounding towns. In June 2014, ISIS captured Mosul and then the Nineveh Plain, giving Christians of the region the choice to convert to Islam, to pay a tax to the IslamicState, or to flee with nothing but the clothes on their back. Today, there are only 200,000 Christians who remain in Iraq; most of them living in unsustainable conditions in Iraqi Kurdistan. There is now a significant risk that the return of displaced persons and refugees may be delayed by Mosul residents who flee to the abandoned Nineveh Plain. "The Coalition must protect the rights of genocide victims, particularly those seeking to return to their homes after more than two years."