Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says its armed forces are preparing for an offensive to retake the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State (IS). Mr Abadi told the BBC he hoped Mosul would be liberated in a few months' time, and with a minimum of casualties. Mosul, which was home to more than a million people, fell to IS last June. Mr Abadi also said he had been "a bit frustrated" in his first few months in office by the slowness of international help for the fight against IS. But in recent weeks, he added, the situation had changed for the better. Co-ordination Mr Abadi replaced his party colleague, Nouri Maliki, as prime minister in September. Mr Maliki, also a Shia Muslim, was widely criticised for alienating Iraq's Sunni Arab minority by pursuing sectarian policies. IS is believed to have capitalised on that alienation when it captured large parts of northern and western Iraq last summer, routing the army. Soldiers and allied Shia militiamen have now begun to retake territory north of the capital Baghdad with the help of US-led coalition air strikes, while Kurdish Peshmerga forces have made advances around Mosul. In an interview with BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson, Mr Abadi said Iraqi government forces were "planning an offensive on Mosul in the next few months". However, he did not specify when the offensive might be launched, saying that he hoped it would be before the end of the year. The timing of the assault depended "on the situation on the ground" and "our own preparation", he said.
