ISIS Dumps Thousands Of Bodies In Huge Sinkhole Near Mosul

A Rapid Response spokesperson told Reuters that the forces had “killed tens from Daesh [IS]” during the heavy fighting, though the number of fatalities has yet to be confirmed.

Troops hoisted an Iraqi flag on top of the buildings in the Dawasa district and Lt Gen Abdul-Amir Raheed Yar Allah hailed the federal police as “heroes”.

All have been destroyed, but it’s hoped their capture and fix will help the US-backed Iraqi forces drive out the militants who took control of the northern city in 2014.

The U.S. -led coalition dropped more than 15 munitions in Mosul on Friday, Ali said, saying they targeted auto bombs, sniper positions and small IS mortar units.

East Mosul is now under the control of Iraqi forces, after it was captured following 100 days of fighting in January.

Some 45,000 people have fled the western part of Mosul “in the last nine days”, according to latest International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates.

He said he was not sure whether it was an Iraqi air force strike or one by the USA -led coalition.

The Islamic State group has used chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria at least 52 times according to a report published late a year ago by IHS conflict monitor, a London-based research and intelligence gathering group.

The Iraqi forces are advancing toward the old city centre form the south and the southwest.

The number of civilians fleeing western Mosul in recent weeks has topped 57,000, an Iraqi official said Sunday.

Iraqi forces have been making steady progress towards the ISIS-held old city center of Mosul.

In 2014, Islamic State leader Ab Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a “caliphate” encompassing parts of Iraq and Syria from Mosul’s grand al-Nuri Mosque.

The city and its civilian population are divided into an eastern and a western segment by the River Tigris; the eastern side and its roughly 400,000 citizens have been free since a one hundred day offensive led by the Iraqi army ended in January.

As US-backed Iraqi troops push deeper into the IS-held areas of Mosul, thousands of civilians are forced to flee amid the terrorist’s increasingly gruesome attempts to hold them as human shields, inhabitants of an overflowing refugee camp told RT.

“At the tactical level it is a very hard fight”, said Isler, deputy commander for the coalition’s air forces.

The militants are using suicide vehicle bombers, snipers and booby traps to counter the offensive waged by the 100,000-strong force of Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iranian-trained Shi’ite Muslim paramilitary groups. Doctors in the nearby Erbil say they began receiving patients showing symptoms of chemical weapons exposure on Thursday.