Video shows liberated Iraqis help root out defected Islamic State fighters

This footage from the frontlines of the battle against the Islamic State in Iraq has shown how liberated Iraqis are helping security forces identify interloping former Isis supporters and fighters.

The video, shared online by Mosul-based group, Mosul Eye, was captured in one village near Azhilia, west of Qayara where Iraqi security forces are making gains against the Islamic State. The government fighters, aided by US-led coalition airstrikes, have, in recent days, cut off the road linking Mosul with Baghdad in the region south of the city and also captured towns to the north east of Mosul.

Showing large groups of men of all ages herded into a building courtyard, Iraqi officers can be heard shouting instructions and asking each their name. At one point one of the soldiers asks the men to exaplain which individuals supported IS or provided them with weapons and logistics.

Later in the footage a man explains that another had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State but that he left ten days later. Cheers erupt in another scene as one man is declared innocent and set free.

Qayara, in Iraq's Niniveh province, has been the backdrop to heavy fighting in the last 24 hours as Iraqi government forces in the south move into position for an assault on Mosul, Islamic State's defacto capital in Iraq.

Yesterday (16 August), Iraqi forces pushed into the city on three separate axes. Reports on social media have claimed that Islamic State's police chief in al-Qayara, Marwan al-Sab'awi was killed during the clashes. Unconfirmed reports have claimed a number of of Iraqi troops were also killed in an Isis counter attack which was led by a suicide bomber.