Leader says Islamic State is at its end
MOSUL, Iraq — Iraq’s Prime Minister is declaring an end to the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate after Iraqi forces captured the compound of a landmark mosque in Mosul that was blown up last week.
Haider al-Abadi says “we are seeing the end of the fake Daesh state ... we will not relent, our brave forces will bring victory,” according to a statement posted to Twitter on Thursday where he used the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
The retaking of the al-Nuri mosque is a hugely symbolic win. The site is where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only public appearance in July 2014, declaring an Islamic “caliphate” on territory captured in Iraq and Syria.
Iraqi and coalition officials say Islamic State fighters blew up the site last week, but the militants blame a U.S. air strike for the destruction. U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, however, said coalition planes “did not conduct strikes in that area at that time.”
Islamic State had initially tried to destroy the al-Nouri Mosque in July 2014, saying the structure contradicted their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.
Mosul residents converged on the area, however, and formed a human chain to protect it. Last week’s destruction was only the latest in a long series of priceless archaeological and cultural sites that the militants have ravaged across Iraq and Syria.
The advances Thursday come as the Iraqi troops are pushing deeper into the Old City, a densely populated neighborhood west of the Tigris River where Islamic State fighters are making their last stand in Iraq’s second-largest city.
Iraqi special forces reached the al-Nuri Mosque compound and took control of the surrounding streets on Thursday afternoon, following a dawn push into the area,said Lt. Gen. Abdul Wahab al-Saadi of the elite force.
Damaged and destroyed houses dot the route Iraqi forces have carved into the congested district — along a landscape of destruction where the stench of rotting bodies rises from under the rubble.
Thursday’s push comes more than a week after Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul’s last Islamic State-held parts of the Old City neighborhood, with its narrow alleyways and dense clusters of homes.
After months of fighting, the Islamic State hold in Mosul has now shrunk to less than 0.77 square miles of territory.