‘IS will be dislodged from Mosul in May’

An Iraqi commander expects to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul in May despite resistance from the militants in the Old City district.

Thebattleshouldbecompleted “in a maximum of three weeks”, the army’s chief of staff, Lt Gen Othman al-Ghanmi, was quoted as saying by state-run newspaper al-Sabah on Sunday. A US-led coalition is providing air and ground support for the offensive in Mosul, which fell to hardline Sunni Muslim fighters in June 2014.

IS has lost most of the city since the offensive began in October and is now surrounded in the northwestern districts, including the historic Old City centre. The UN believes up to half a million people remain in the area, 400,000 of whom are in the Old City with little food, water and medicine.

The militants have dug in among the civilians, often launching deadly counter-attacks to repel forces closing in on the Old City’s Grand al-Nuri Mosque. A group of 36 Yazidi survivors has been rescued after three years of “slavery” under Islamic State’s rule, the United Nations said on Sunday.

Since Friday, the women and girls have received lodging, clothing, medical and psychological aid in Duhok, said a statement from UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq Lise Grande. After dropping a monster bomb on its fighters, then targeting its leader, the US military is looking to destroy IS’s Afghan branch before battle-hardened reinforcements arrive from Syria and Iraq.

While US and Kabul government forces have mainly been combatting Taliban fighters since 2001, IS’s local offshoot — also known as Islamic StateKhorasan — has a stronghold in eastern Afghanistan.