Offensive measures

Members of the Iraqi army’s 9th Division fire a multiple rocket launcher from a hill in Talul al-Atshana, on the south-western outskirts of Mosul during an offensive to retake the city from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) fighters. Iraqi forces reached one of Mosul’s five destroyed bridges as they pushed deeper into the western half of Iraq’s second largest city, driving the Isil militants back with the help of US-led airstrikes.