Kurdish forces have launched a major assault on a town held by the Islamic State terror group near Mosul, opening a new front in the offensive to wrest back the terrorists' last Iraqi bastion. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told an international meeting in Paris that the four-day-old offensive is advancing faster than expected. <br/><br/>France and Iraq were co-chairing the meeting on the future of Mosul, which observers have warned could raise even greater humanitarian and interconfessional challenges than the massive military operation to retake it.<br/><br/>In some areas, the Iraqi advance was met by a trickle of civilians fleeing both the fighting and the terrorists who ruled them for two years, but the feared mass exodus from Mosul had yet to materialise. The main target of the latest Kurdish push was the town of Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul. Iraqi forces also pressed assaults towards the city from the east and south.