Iraqi and Kurdish forces directed by U.S. advisers advanced toward Mosul Monday, launching an offensive to drive ISIS out of the city after its two-year occupation, NBC News reported. Brigadier Helgord Hekmat, a spokesman for the Kurdish forces, said 4,000 Peshmerga forces had retaken a cluster of villages. Onlookers cheered and danced as tanks rolled toward Mosul early Monday. Morale was high and troops flashed victory signs as they moved on the city. Still, the United Nations warned that up to one million civilians may be planning to evacuate their homes in Mosul in anticipation of the military action. “Already, the operation is so large [that] we’re struggling to reach people who need help,” said Lise Grande, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator for Iraq. The complex military operation will be the largest in Iraq since American troops left in 2011 and, if successful, the biggest blow yet to ISIS.
Gunfire broke out in the parking lot of a New Jersey mall in the predawn hours of Black Friday, killing one man and wounding his brother, prosecutors say.
The shooting near the Macy's at Hamilton Mall in Mays Landing killed a 20-year-old man and injured his 26-year-old brother, the Atlantic County prosecutor's office said.
The suspect or suspects remain at large. Prosecutors didn't indicate whether the shooting was related to Black Friday shopping. The mall opened as scheduled at 6 a.m.
Police responded to a 911 call at 1:05 a.m. and found the victim, who lives in Atlantic City, dead from multiple gunshot wounds.
His brother, who lives in Clayton, New Jersey, was shot in the leg and taken to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center-City Division, prosecutors said. He is in stable condition.
The victims' names weren't released.
Numerous shell casings littered the ground in the pre-dawn hours. Nearby lay a baseball cap and a Macy's bag. A bullet hole could be seen in a sport utility vehicle parked all alone in the parking lot.
U.S. & World
More than 15 evidence markers were laid down in the parking lot and the SUV with bullet holes was towed away around 7 a.m.
