Iraqi forces take Mosul
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi government forces on Saturday took control over western Mosul’s medieval Old City, the last bastion for Islamic State militants in Iraq’s second largest city, Iraqi media quoted the operations command saying.
The Iraqi Joint Operations Command spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Yahia Rasoul, was quoted saying forces took control over the Old City, the birthplace of Islamic State’s self-styled “caliphate” in Iraqi and Syria which was declared in 2014, suggesting the end of IS’s three-year existence in the city.
The Defense Ministry’s War Media Cell said earlier that government forces killed 35 Islamic State members and wounded six others while sneaking from the western side of Mosul into the eastern side. It also said Federal Police forces finished their combat missions in the Old City by retaking Nujaifi street, Bab al-Toub and Souk al-Sagha (jewelry market), all previously marked as the last spots remaining in IS grip.
The statement said the militants were escaping the advancing troops in the Old City.
Iraqi government forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition, have been fighting IS out of Mosul since mid October. Late June, troops took over the Old City’s Nuri al-Kabir Mosque where IS first declared the establishment of its rule in 2014 in a sermon delivered by the supreme leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Iraqi generals had said only a few hundred militants remain in a small area in neighborhoods overlooking the Tigris River, which bisects the city.
The war against IS in Mosul has displaced at least 900.000, according to Iraqi and United Nations authorities, and civilians continued to flee as operations reached the last hideouts in the Old City.
11 ISIS troops die in airstrike
Tal Afar (IraqiNews.com) Twelve Islamic State militants died in airstrikes that targeted their convoy west of Mosul, according to local sources, while the group killed 10 others for trying to flee.
The sources told Alsumaria News on Saturday that three consecutive strikes targeted a convoy of Islamic State members in the town of Tal Afar, aq major IS stronghold west of Mosul, killing twelve members including the group’s top “judiciary” official.
Meanwhile, Ahmed al-Shamri, from Nineveh Operations command, told Jordan’s Petra news agency that 10 other IS members were shot dead by comrades for trying to flee the town.
Islamic State have been holding Tal Afar since 2014, with the area becoming one of its most significant bastions in Nineveh province.
So far, offensives by the pro-government Popular Mobilization have isolated the town from the Syrian borders and from Mosul, and recaptured a main military base there.
Earlier on Saturday, government troops reportedly drove out IS militants in central Mosul’s Old City, where they group declared its rule in Iraq in 2014.
The issue of Tal Afar’s invasion has been controversial since Iraqi government forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition, launched an offensive in October to retake areas occupied by the Islamic State in Nineveh, most notably the city of Mosul.
The Shia-led Popular Mobilization has occasionally said its fighters were awaiting orders from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to invade the mostly-Sunni Turkmen town. But regional Sunni powers, especially Turkey, had opposed the notion fearing sectarian consequences, obliging Abadi’s government to reassure that only the official forces would take up the mission.