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Iraq announces 'victory' over Islamic State in Mosul Iraq announces 'victory' over Islamic State in Mosul
(about 1 hour later)
Iraq’s prime inister has announced “victory” over Islamic State in the city of Mosul. Iraq’s prime minister has arrived in Mosul and declared “victory” over Islamic State after eight months of fighting, bringing an end to three years of jihadi rule in the northern city.
A statement from the office of Haider al-Abadi said on Sunday: “The commander in chief of the armed forces Haider al-Abadi arrived in the liberated city of Mosul and congratulated the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people for the great victory.” The battle has left large parts of Mosul in ruins, killed thousands of civilians and displaced nearly one million people.
Celebrations broke out among police forces in the city on Saturday as Isis fighters were driven from the city in the final stretch of the nearly nine-month offensive. “The commander in chief of the armed forces [the prime minister] Haider al-Abadi arrived in the liberated city of Mosul and congratulated the heroic fighters and Iraqi people for the great victory,” his office said in a statement on Sunday.
The announcement came despite reports that heavy fighting continued in the last Isis strongholds in the city.The announcement came despite reports that heavy fighting continued in the last Isis strongholds in the city.
The defeat would be the biggest yet for Isis in the three years since it seized Mosul in a lightning offensive, swept across much of the country’s Sunni Arab heartland and proclaimed a caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria Bodies of militants lay in the narrow streets of the old city where Islamic State staged a last stand against Iraqi forces backed by a US-led coalition.
More details to follow … The group vowed to fight to the death in Mosul, but Iraqi military spokesman Brig Gen Yahya Rasool told state TV 30 militants had been killed attempting to escape by swimming across the Tigris river that bisects the city.
The cornered militants resorted to sending female suicide bombers out among the thousands of civilians who are emerging from the battlefield wounded, malnourished and fearful.
The battle has also exacted a heavy toll on Iraq’s security forces. The Iraqi government does not reveal casualty figures, but a funding request from the US Department of Defense (DoD) said the elite counter-terrorism service, which has spearheaded the fight in Mosul, had suffered 40% losses.
The US leads an international coalition backing the campaign against Isis by conducting airstrikes against the militants and assisting troops on the ground. DoD has requested $1.27bn (£1bn) in next year’s budget to continue supporting Iraqi forces.
Without Mosul – by far the largest city to have fallen under militant control – Islamic State’s dominion in Iraq will be reduced to mainly rural, desert areas west and south of the city where tens of thousands of people live.
It is almost exactly three years since the ultra-hardline group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaimed a caliphate spanning Syria and Iraq from the pulpit of the medieval Grand al-Nuri mosque.
Abadi declared the end of Islamic State’s “state of falsehood” a week ago, after security forces retook the mosque – although only after retreating militants blew it up.
The United Nations predicts it will cost more than $1bn to repair basic infrastructure in Mosul. In some of the worst affected areas, almost no buildings appear to have escaped damage and Mosul’s dense construction means the extent of the devastation might be underestimated, UN officials said.
The militants are expected to revert to insurgent tactics as they lose territory. The fall of Mosul also exposes ethnic and sectarian fractures between Arabs and Kurds over disputed territories or between Sunnis and the Shia majority that have plagued Iraq for more than a decade.