Iraqi prime minister declares end to ISIS caliphate as fight continues
MOSUL, Iraq — Iraq’s Prime Minister declared an end to the ISIS caliphate Thursday after Iraqi forces captured a landmark mosque compound in Mosul that the Islamic State group blew up last week.
“We are seeing the end of the fake Daesh state, the liberation of Mosul proves that,” Haider al-Abadi said using the Arabic acronym for ISIS in a statement posted to Twitter. “We will not relent, our brave forces will bring victory,” he added.
But even as the Iraqi leader issued his statement, heavy clashes continued to unfold in Mosul — filling field hospitals and forcing hundreds to flee.
The destroyed al-Nuri mosque retaken by Iraqi special forces Thursday following a dawn push is a hugely symbolic win. The site is where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only public appearance in July 2014, declaring a self-styled Islamic “caliphate,” encompassing territories then-held by ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
Iraqi and coalition officials said ISIS blew up the mosque complex last week. The Islamic State group has blamed a U.S. airstrike for the destruction, a claim rejected by a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition who said coalition planes “did not conduct strikes in that area at that time.”
The advances Thursday come as Iraqi troops are pushing deeper into the Old City, a densely populated neighborhood west of the Tigris River where ISIS fighters are making their last stand in Iraq’s secondlargest city. Clashes were ongoing into the evening Thursday, according to Associated Press reporters on the scene.
Last week Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake the Old City’s narrow alleyways and dense clusters of homes, embarking on some of the most difficult urban combat in the ISIS fight to date. ISIS now holds less than 1 square mile of territory inside Mosul, but the advances have come at considerable cost.
U.S.-led coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon told reporters at the Pentagon that victory in Mosul was “imminent” and would likely occur “in days rather than weeks.”
But, he continued, “the Old City still remains a difficult, dense, suffocating fight — tight alleyways with booby traps, civilians and (ISIS) fighters around every corner.”
Some 300 ISIS fighters remain holed up inside the Old City according to Iraq’s special forces along with an estimated 50,000 civilians according to the United Nations.