On a dusty plain to the east of Mosul, cranes are lowering concrete walls into place as prefabricated living quarters are trucked in.
It's a race against time: this will be an improvised base for troops from Iraq's 9th Armored Division amid final preparations for the assault to end ISIS' control of Iraq's second largest city and the group's last major stronghold in the country.
Iraqi troops were last in this part of northern Iraq in summer 2014, when they were fleeing the rampant advance of ISIS fighters.
Now, as part of an agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government and the United States, they are preparing to reverse that humiliating loss.
"Today, you are closer than any time in the past to get rid of Daesh's injustice and tyranny," Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi told the people of Mosul on Tuesday, in the first live official telecast of state media to Mosul from Baghdad.
Some 4,000 troops of the Iraqi Security Forces are expected to arrive in this sector within days. Among the advance party of some 160 soldiers, relations with local Kurdish Peshmerga officers appear cordial and the mood relaxed.
There are regular meetings between the two sides and a Joint Operations Room has been set up. The Kurds -- who have played a key role in the fightback against ISIS -- say their role will be to support the ISF when the offensive gets underway, but they won't enter Mosul itself, a largely Sunni-Arab city.
