Iraqi commander says 300 ISIS fighters holed up in Mosul

The Iraqi army has been mopping up the last pockets of resistance from Islamic State (IS) militants in Mosul, after a long battle to recapture the city.

Key dates in the offensive against the Islamic State group in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul where on Sunday Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory.

A military spokesman cited by the TV said the insurgents’ defense lines were collapsing.

The battle for Mosul first began on October 17, 2016 and the fight grew tougher when Iraqi forces entered the warren of narrow alleys in the densely populated Old City.

Meanwhile, an airstrike on an ISIS convoy on the outskirts of Tal Afar city, west of Mosul reportedly killed 11 Daesh militants.

The battle for Mosul – by far the largest city to fall under the militants’ control – has left large areas in ruins, killed thousands of civilians and displaced almost one million people.

The United Nations estimates the cost of repairs to the war-torn city to be about $1 billion US.

Nearly exactly three years ago, the ultra-hardline group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared from Mosul a “caliphate” over adjoining parts of Iraq and Syria.

Islamic State terrorists have vowed to “fight to the death” and are using civilians as human shields in Mosul as Iraqi forces make a final push to retake Iraq’s second-largest city.

Iraqi forces, backed by the US-led coalition, say they are just hours away from retaking Mosul, which fell to IS in the summer of 2014.

Not only do remaining ISIS fighters present dangers, but new violence could break out between Arabs and Kurds or Sunnis and Shi’ites as the city struggles to regain balance, and these groups will make territorial claims.

In some areas, there is hardly a building that has not been damaged.

The end of the fighting in Mosul would not score, however, not the disappearance of the ir, which still controls areas in Iraq and in territories in the east and the centre of Syria, where his stronghold Raqa is besieged by forces supported by Washington.

Last week security forces re-took Mosul’s medieval Grand al-Nuri mosque, where al-Baghdadi’s caliphate proclamation was made.