Mosul battle to end in days as troops
advance in Old City: Iraqi general
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[June 26, 2017]
By Marius Bosch and Khaled al-Ramahi
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - The battle to take
full control of Mosul from Islamic State will be over in a few days and
an attempted fight-back by the militants failed, an Iraqi general told
Reuters on Monday.
"Only a small part remains in the city, specifically the Old City," said
Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi, commander of the Counter
Terrorism Service (CTS) elite units in Mosul.
"From a military perspective, Daesh (Islamic State) is finished," Assadi
said. "It lost its fighting spirit and its balance, we are making calls
to them to surrender or die."
The area now under Islamic State control in Mosul, once the militant
group's de facto capital in Iraq, is less than 2 sq kms, the Iraqi
military said.
An attempt by Islamic State militants late on Sunday to return to
neighborhoods outside the Old City failed, Assadi said, adding the city
would fall "in very few days, God willing".
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The CTS is leading the fight in the densely populated maze of narrow
alleyways of the historic Old City which lies by the western bank of the
Tigris river.
A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support
in the eight-month-old offensive.
The militants last week destroyed the historic Grand al-Nuri Mosque and
its leaning minaret from which their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria three years ago.
The mosque's grounds remain under the militants' control.
Iraqi troops captured the neighborhood of al-Faruq in the northwestern
side of the Old City facing the mosque, the military said on Monday.
PUSHING EAST
Iraqi forces took the eastern side of Mosul from Islamic State in
January, after 100 days of fighting, and started attacking the western
side in February.
Up to 350 militants are estimated by the Iraqi military to be besieged
in the Old City, dug in among civilians in crumbling houses and making
extensive use of booby traps, suicide bombers and sniper fire to slow
down the troops' advance.
Assadi said Iraqi forces had linked up along al-Faruq, a main street
bisecting the Old City, and would start pushing east, toward the river.
"It will be the final episode," he said.
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![](../images/062617pics/news_J15.jpg)
raqi security forces transport displaced civilians with an armoured
fighting vehicle out of West Mosul during fighting with Islamic
State militants in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq June 24, 2017.
REUTERS/Marius Bosch
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More than 50,000 civilians, about half the Old City's population,
remain trapped behind Islamic State lines with little food, water or
medicines, according to those who escaped.
Aid organizations say Islamic State has stopped many from leaving,
using them as human shields. Hundreds of civilians fleeing the Old
City have been killed in the past three weeks.
Islamic State has carried out sporadic suicide bombings in parts of
Mosul using sleeper cells. It launched a wave of such attacks late
on Sunday, trying to take control of a district west of the Old
City, Hay al-Tanak, and the nearby Yarmuk neighborhood.
Social media carried posts showing black smoke and reports that it
came from houses and cars set alight by the militants. Witnesses
said residents had fled the two neighborhoods.
Assadi said the attempt to take over the neighborhoods had failed
and the militants were now besieged in one or two pockets of Hay
al-Tanak. A curfew was in force over western Mosul, a Reuters
correspondent reported.
The fall of Mosul would mark the end of the Iraqi half of the
"caliphate", but Islamic State remains in control of large areas of
both Iraq and Syria.
Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and has
been assumed to be hiding in the Iraqi-Syrian border area. There has
been no confirmation of Russian reports over the past days that he
has been killed.
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In Syria, the insurgents' "capital" Raqqa, is nearly encircled by a
U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition.
(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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