Iraq forces push deep into devastated Old Mosul

Iraqi forces battled deep into the devastated historical heart of Mosul and closed in fast on the last pockets of militants on Sunday, eight months into an epic battle to retake the city

Displaced civilians rescued by Iraqi security forces at Old City are pictured as they are transported aboard an armoured vehicle to an emergency clinic in western Mosul, Iraq
Displaced civilians rescued by Iraqi security forces at Old City are pictured as they are transported aboard an armoured vehicle to an emergency clinic in western Mosul, Iraq

Iraqi forces battled deep into the devastated historical heart of Mosul and closed in fast on the last pockets of militants on Sunday, eight months into an epic battle to retake the city.

Three years after overrunning Mosul and making it the de facto Iraqi capital of the "caliphate" they proclaimed, the terrorist organisation only controlled about a square kilometre in the city, commanders said.

"Sixty-five to 70% of the Old City has been liberated, there is less than a square kilometre left to retake," Lieutenant Colonel Salam al-Obeidi, from the elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) that has spearheaded the assault, told AFP news agency inside the devastated Old City, about 50 metres from what is left of the Hadba leaning minaret the militants blew up four days earlier.

The ornamental brickwork on the base of the 12th century Hadba (Hunchback) minaret, which was Mosul's symbol and one of the most recognisable landmarks in Iraq, was visible in the background.

The militants simultaneously blew up the nearby Nuri mosque, where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi gave his first sermon as IS leader in July 2014, his last public appearance to date.

Obeidi estimated that only "a few hundred Daesh fighters" were left in the Old City, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.

Iraqi forces took the eastern side from Islamic State in January, after 100 days of fighting, and started attacking the western side in February.

On Sunday, Iraq's armed forces blocked a major wave of attacks by Islamic State suicide bombers outside the Old City of Mosul.

The attacks targeted Hay al-Tanak, a poor neighborhood west of the Old City, the last stronghold of the militants in Mosul.

It is the first wave of attacks reported outside the Old City since the battle to capture the historic district from Islamic State started a week ago.

The narrow, windy streets of the Old City, an area packed with heritage treasures covering about three square kilometres on Mosul's west bank of the Tigris, were littered with rubble.