Iraq forces battle Islamic State in Mosul after PM fetes ‘victory’

forces battled the last Islamic State group holdouts in Mosul on Wednesday, a day after the country’s premier feted the “major victory” over the jihadists in the northern city.

In neighbouring Syria, US-backed forces gained ground after air strikes by the international anti-IS coalition punched holes in the wall of the Old City in Raqa, where they are waging a parallel offensive against the jihadists. “Today, our advance was easier than yesterday,” said Lieutenant Colonel Haider Hussein, a commander in Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service.

“We took control of more than 200 metres today and there are less than 200 metres remaining toward the Tigris River,” Hussein said, referring to the waterway marking the eastern edge of remaining IS-held territory in the city. IS has gone from fully controlling Mosul to holding a limited area in the Old City on its western side. But Iraqi troops in Mosul have faced tough fighting and a spike in suicide bombings in recent days, commanders have said. The jihadists “are using a new strategy in which they wait inside houses and fire bullets or blow themselves up,” Hussein said. US-led coalition air strikes have killed at least 224 civilians since the Syrian forces it backs entered Islamic State group bastion Raqa a month ago, a monitor said on Thursday.

But the coalition pushed back against the report, saying its “critics” were not conducting “detailed assessments”.

“At least 224 civilians, including 38 children and 28 women, have been killed in air strikes by the global coalition on Raqa since the SDF entered it,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding it did not have a toll for those killed in other ways.