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Officer killed near Mosul’s Old City, IS clash with troops in liberated district

 Officer killed near Mosul’s Old City, IS clash with troops in liberated district

Iraqi Federal Police fight in the frontline at Bab al Jadid district as the battle against Islamic State’s fighters continues in the old city of Mosul. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal

Iraqi Federal Police fight in the frontline at Bab al Jadid district as the battle against Islamic State’s fighters continues in the old city of Mosul. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) An Iraqi police officer was killed on Wednesday and another was wounded during clashes between government troops and Islamic State members near the militants’ last hideout in western Mosul’s Old City, security sources said.

Shafaaq News website quoted the security source saying IS members waged a violent attack on a security deployment near a medical complex in al-Shifa neighborhood, the last district remaining under IS control near the Old City.

Four other police members were wounded in a suicide car bombing by IS which targeted security locations in Bab al-Toub in the Old City.

Meanwhile, clashes flared in Dindan district, south of the Old City, when Islamic State members reentered the district which Iraqi forces took over in March.

al-Dindan district, western Mosul (google maps)

Cap. Amir Watheq, from the Iraqi Federal Police service, told BasNews that tens of IS members had invaded Dindan and Nabi Sheet on Wednesday dawn, executing six civilians and setting several houses and vehicles on fire. He said intense fighting raged on between police and the militants under an aerial cover from warplanes.

Federal Police chief Shaker Jawdat said earlier on Wednesday that his forces carried out a “tactical operation” which lured militants out of the Old City towards the Dindan region, ensnaring them in the middle of snipers and targeted shelling.

Iraqi commanders have recently said that a few hundred IS fighters remained in the Old City, the group’s last refuge in western Mosul from where the group first declared the establishment of its rule over a third of both Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Iraqi government forces recaptured eastern Mosul in January and pushed towards the western side of the city in mid February.

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