Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
The last stand
runners to load up another 30 grenades as well as they had lobbed that many in just one hour.
Shouldering eight bags of rounds, one young soldier in an Iron Maiden T-shirt shouted: “We do this every hour.
“They keep attacking so we have to keep going. They just won’t die.
“We have killed 70 just today – injured more – but they still keep fighting. They are monsters.
“They send women out as suicide bombers. They are not even human.”
Nearby other war-weary soldiers throw water over themselves, too exhausted to care about the stench of a corpse lying yards away.
In 47C of heat, the dead of Mosul lie ignored in many streets for days.
Fifty yards away the bare legs of another body jut from beneath rubble, waiting to be picked up by teams vainly fighting to stop disease spreading.
Coalition bombs slam home every half an hour as troops push forward with machine guns to take out snipers.
We are told that most days hundreds of terrified civilians flee towards the Iraqi lines.
But yesterday we saw none, even though many are still trapped.
General Fadil Barwari told me his men had faced 17 young female suicide bombers in the last 72 hours.
He believes they are Black Widows, wives of killed Chechen fighters who have plagued Russia.
He said: “These women are mostly Russian or Chechen. IS send them out to blow themselves up and kill my soldiers. This is a terrible thing to face.
“We do not know how many IS there are left – maybe 1,000 to 1,500.
“They have been fighting very hard and it is not easy to say how long this will take. But they are surrounded and we have them in a very small area.
“They have used tunnels to come behind my soldiers and have made holes through adjoining houses so they can sneak along streets and reappear.”
The nightmare of the million Mosul civilians under IS rule is, for those who survive, almost over.
For three years they have seen beheadings and crucifixions and in the past weeks some have been burned alive for trying to flee.
It is hard to imagine IS could have more horrors up their sleeve.
But at the height of the battle they have kept one of their worst tricks for the end – using their own children as human shields to protect female suicide bombers.
One soldier told me: “They have sent out the women suicide bombers with their children walking in front of them so they will not be shot.
“It is a terrible, terrible thing to do and it has held us back a great deal.”
Asked when the battle will be over, General Barwari said: “We do not know exactly when but soon.”
Sources have told us is likely to be in the next few days.
But yesterday the shooting and bombings were still raging into the evening – showing no sign that IS was giving up its caliphate dream without a bloody end.