IRAQI troops liberated a Christian-majority town east of Islamic State-held Mosul yesterday as more forces joined the fray.

Soldiers, including the elite Counterterrorism Forces unit which is fresh to the fight, drove the apocalyptic death cult from Bartella, just nine miles from the northern city.

Isis sent nine suicide car bombs against the troops, one of which hit an army vehicle, wounding five soldiers. The rest were destroyed before they could reach their targets.

Speaking via videolink to a Paris summit on stabilising Mosul after the campaign, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the offensive was proceeding faster than expected.

“The fighting forces are pushing forward towards the town more quickly than we thought,” he said, “and more quickly, certainly, than we established in our plan of campaign.”

Meanwhile, Iraq’s Judiciary Council issued an arrest warrant for Atheel al-Nujaifi, former governor of Nineveh province, where Mosul is located, for allowing the unauthorised entry of Turkish troops into the country last year.

Mr Nujaifi, who now leads the Turkish-trained Nineveh Guard, is said to have surrendered the city to Isis in 2014 without a fight.

Last week, Wikileaks revealed that Washington knew as early as 2014 that Turkey’s allies Saudia Arabia and Qatar were secretly funding Isis.

Yesterday, the Shi’ite Popular Mobilisation Units said they were set to begin operations west of Mosul to prevent Isis fleeing into Syria, despite the US-led plan for the offensive allowing for such a retreat.

Isis claimed yesterday to have shot down a US A-10 ground attack plane in the eastern Syrian town of Markadah, near the Iraqi border.