Battle for Mosul: Iraqi troops make final push to clear city of last Islamic State militants

Mosul: Iraqi forces slowly advanced on Monday to retake the last patch of ground in Mosul where Islamic State militants are holding on to a tiny sliver of the Old City, west of the Tigris River, a day after the prime minister visited the soldiers to congratulate troops on the hard-fought battle. [caption id=“attachment_3741243” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil of the Iraqi special forces said that said even after his men, closely backed by US-led coalition airstrikes, retake the last areas of Islamic State control, clearing operations in Mosul will continue to rid the city of sleeper cells and booby-trapped explosives. Iraqi commanders say they believe hundreds of Islamic State fighters remain inside the neighborhood and are using their families including women and children as human shields in a fight to the death that has slowed recent Iraqi gains to a crawl. “There’s no accurate estimate for the Daesh fighters and the families who are stuck there,” said Lt. Gen. Abdul-Ghani al-Asadi, a senior special forces commander, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. He said most civilians left in the old city are believed to be Islamic State family members. “But we will not accuse them of anything,” he continued, “if they don’t carry weapons they are civilians.” Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, fell to the Islamic State group in 2014, when Islamic State blitzed across much of northwestern Iraq and subsequently declared a caliphate on the territory held by extremists in Iraq and Syria. Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul last October and by late January, the eastern half of the city which is roughly divided by the Tigris onto a western and eastern section was declared liberated. The push into western Mosul began the following month and in June, Iraqi forces started the weeks-long push through the old city, Mosul’s most congested district. On Sunday, Iraqi soldiers celebrated recent gains, though Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi stopped short of declaring an outright victory. On his visit to Mosul, al-Abadi met field commanders, kissed babies and toured a reopened market. But airstrikes and sniper fire continued amid the revelry as the extremists stubbornly held on to a small area in the Old City. Over the nearly nine-month campaign, Iraqi forces have reduced the Islamic State hold on Mosul to less than a square kilometer (less than a mile) of territory. “We are glad to see normal life return for the citizens,” al-Abadi said, according to a statement from his office. “This is the result of the sacrifices of the (country’s) heroic fighters.”