Iraq declares victory in Mosul

MOSUL, Iraq — Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi celebrated with Iraqi troops Sunday in Mosul after they drove Islamic State militants from some of their last strongholds in a nearly nine-month campaign, although fighting by holdouts continued elsewhere.

Dressed in a black military uniform, a smiling alAbadi walked amid the soldiers, at one point grabbing an Iraqi flag and briefly draping it on his shoulders. Other troops waved flags and pointed their weapons in the air nearby.

Al-Iraqiya TV quoted him as saying he “congratulates the heroic fighters and the people on the big victory” in Iraq’s second-largest city, even as fighting rang out in pockets near the militants’ last stand at the Tigris River.

The loss of Mosul would mark a major defeat for the Islamic State, which has suffered a series of major setbacks over the past year.

The militants control less than a mile of territory in the shattered city in northern Iraq, but they were using human shields, suicide bombers and snipers in a fight to the death.

Islamic State militants seized Mosul in the summer of 2014 when they swept across northern and central Iraq. That summer, the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, appeared at Mosul’s al-Nuri Mosque and declared a caliphate on territory it seized in Iraq and Syria.

Iraq launched the operation to retake Mosul in October, backed by airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition. The fierce battle has killed thousands and displaced more than 897,000 people.

Last month, as Iraqi troops closed in on Mosul’s Old City, the militants destroyed the al-Nuri Mosque and its famous leaning minaret to deny the forces a symbolic triumph.

Lt. Gen. Jassim Nizal said his forces achieved “victory” in their sector, after a similar announcement by the militarized Federal Police. His soldiers danced to patriotic music atop tanks even as airstrikes sent up plumes of smoke nearby.

Nizal acknowledged that many of his men were among those who fled the city when ISIS forces seized Mosul in 2014 in a humiliating defeat for the Iraqi armed forces.

“Some things happened here, that’s true,” he said. “But we have come back.”

Fadel Senna / AFP / Getty Images Iraqi federal police wave the national flag Sunday as they celebrate the “liberation” of Mosul from Islamic State militants.

Ahmad al-Rubaye / AFP / Getty Images Smoke billows in Mosul following an airstrike Sunday by U.S.-led coalition forces targeting the Islamic State group. The battle for the city has killed thousands and has displaced more than 897,000 people.