Iraqi forces launch attack on IS Mosul holdouts

IRAQI forces have launched a broad assault on parts of battleground second city Mosul still held by Islamic State, the military announced on Saturday.

The offensive is the latest push in the more than seven-month battle to retake Mosul, a linchpin in IS’s now crumbling attempt to establish a cross-border jihadist “state”. Multiple security forces units are attacking “what remains of the unliberated areas” on the west bank of the River Tigris, the Joint Operations Command said in a statement.

“Army forces attacked Al-Shifaa neighbourhood and the Republican Hospital, federal police forces Al-Zinjili neighbourhood, and Counter-Terror- ism forces attacked Al-Saha al-Oula neighbourhood,” it said.

All three neighbourhoods are located north of the Old City, a warren of closely spaced buildings and narrow streets that has posed significant challenges to Iraqi forces seeking to oust IS.

The Joint Operations Command said later on Saturday that two colonels from the Iraqi army’s 16th Division were killed in the Mosul area, but did not provide details about when or how they died.

On Friday, the federal police said they had bombarded IS positions with Grad rockets and field artillery in “preparation for attacking the Old City in the coming hours”.

But the Joint Operations Command did not mention any attack on IS-held areas of the Old City on Saturday.

Earlier last week, the military said it had dropped “hundreds of thousands of leaflets” on IS-held areas of Mosul, urging “citizens to exit via safe corridors towards security forces”.

IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led strikes have since regained much of the territory they lost. They launched a major operation to retake Mosul last year, fighting their way to the city and retaking its eastern side before setting their sights on its smaller but more densely populated west.

The battle has taken a heavy toll on civilians, pushing hundreds of thousands to flee, while hundreds more have been killed or wounded.