Iraqi Forces retake northern, eastern Mosul districts from IS
Iraqi army forces.
The army’s Counter-Terrorism Forces and the Defense Ministry’s media service, the War Media Cell, said troops recaptured the districts of Kafa’at al-Thaniya and Andalus in the north and the east from Islamic State militants, raising Iraqi flags above buildings at both areas.
Iraqi government forces, assisted by US-led international forces, advisers and trainers, along with popular militias, have been carrying out a wide-scale campaign since October to retake Mosul, IS’s last urban stronghold in Iraq which fell in the group’s hands in 2014.
Iraqi military and police commanders have said recently they became in control over 90 percent of the eastern region of Mosul, and hope to move onwards to the west, where IS still maintains outstanding strongholds, including Tal Afar.
On Saturday, army forces invaded and later cleared the Mosul University campus, Islamic State’s strongest bastion in eastern Mosul, achieving a most important victory in that region and making a closer step towards liberating that region.
The situation in Mosul has forced 173.000 people to flee homes to refugee camps, and the United Nations had voiced fears, upon the launch of security operations, that battles could displace one million civilians.