Daesh evicted from one-third of eastern Mosul

QAYYARA — Iraqi forces have dislodged Daesh from one third of the eastern side of Mosul, an interior ministry spokesman said on Tuesday, four weeks into the US-backed campaign to take back the city.

The Tigris river divides Mosul into eastern and western sides. The built-up area in the eastern side is slightly bigger than the western side where the old city is located. “More than a third of this (eastern) side has been liberated,” the spokesman, Brigadier-General Saad Maan, told a news conference at the Qayyara military base, the main hub for the forces trying to end Daesh’s two-year rule of Mosul. So far, 955 insurgents have been killed and 108 captured on the southern frontlines of the city alone, Maan said. He did not give a toll for the campaign overall — either for security forces, civilians or Daesh fighters.

With air and ground support from a US-led coalition, Iraqi government forces are trying to consolidate gains made in the east of the city, which they entered at the end of October.

They are yet to enter the northern or southern neighbourhoods of Mosul, where more than 1 million people are thought to be living. More than 54,000 people have been displaced because of the fighting from villages and towns around the city to government-held areas, according to UN estimates.

The figure does not include the tens of thousands of people rounded up in villages around Mosul and forced to accompany Daesh fighters to cover their retreat towards the city.

Meanwhile, Daesh claimed a series of suicide attacks that killed at least 14 people south and west of Baghdad on Monday.

The attacks showed that even though the militants have been losing territory over the past year - and face a big battle to hold Mosul in the north -—they retain the ability to strike across Iraq, even in the central areas near the capital. Eight people were killed and about 25 wounded when two suicide bombers blew up their cars at police checkpoints in Falluja, a former Daesh stronghold west of Baghdad.

A suicide bomber killed six people and wounded another six in a rural area near Kerbala, south of the capital where preparations are underway for a major religious event. The casualty figures were obtained from police sources.

The bomber near Kerbala blew himself up west of the city where people had gathered ing to mark a religious ebent.