![Abandoned villages on road to Mosul rigged with tunnels and bombs]( "Abandoned villages on road to Mosul rigged with tunnels and bombs")
Residents began returning on Wednesday to the village of Sheikh Amir on the road to Mosul, recaptured overnight by advancing Kurdish fighters in the early days of the biggest advance that has been launched against Islamic State. Three days into the assault on Mosul, U.S.-backed government and Kurdish forces are steadily recovering outlying territory before the big push into the city itself, expected to be the biggest battle in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Much of Sheikh Amir had been torn down, including the house of Abbas Ahmad Hussein, a 36-year-old resident who fled the village when Sunni militants of Islamic State, also known as ISIL, ISIS or Daesh, captured it in 2014.
