Fight on to drive IS from Mosul

Iraqi troops have pushed into the last Islamic State stronghold in Mosul, formally launching the final major battle of an eightmonth campaign to drive the militants out of the city.

IS captured Mosul when it swept across northern and central Iraq in summer 2014. The Iraqi army and police launched a massive operation to retake the city in October and has driven the militants from all but a handful of neighbourhoods.

The extremists are expected to make their last stand in the Old City, a densely populated quarter with narrow, winding alleys.

Lieutenant General Abdul-Amir Rasheed Yar Allah, who commands army operations in Ninevah province, said Iraqi special forces, the regular army and federal police are taking

“My troops will be very careful to protect civilians”

part in the operation, which began at dawn yesterday.

Iraq state TV aired live footage showing thick black smoke rising from the Old City, with the sound of gunfire rattling. It said leaflets were distributed urging civilians to leave through five “safe corridors”.

General Abdel Ghani al-Asadi, the head of Iraq’s special forces, said he expects the extremists to put up a “vicious and tough fight”, and his troops “will be very careful” to protect civilians.

The Old City is home to the centuries-old alNuri mosque, where IS leader Abu Bakr alBaghdadi delivered a Friday sermon in 2014 as his group declared an Islamic caliphate in the areas it controlled in Syria and Iraq.

The militants have lost much of that territory over the last three years, and Mosul is their last urban bastion in Iraq.