Iraqi commander says troops push deeper into western Mosul
BAGHDAD >> Iraqi forces pushed deeper into western Mosul on Monday, gaining control of a neighborhood along the Tigris River and the foot of one of the city’s five bridges amid intense clashes with Islamic State militants, a senior Iraqi police commander said.
Maj. Gen Thamir alHussaini said the militarized Federal Police pushed deeper into the Gawsaq neighborhood and reached the bridge known locally as the 4th Bridge.
All of Mosul’s bridges spanning the Tigris River and connecting the western part of the city, still held by the Islamic State group, with its eastern sector, were disabled by airstrikes last year.
Al-Hussaini told The Associated Press that IS militants were fighting back with snipers, antitank missiles and suicide car bombs, describing the clashes as “fierce.” He said Iraqi troops suffered casualties, but didn’t give a specific number.
Iraqi forces later moved into the nearby Wadi Hajar neighborhood, he said.
Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV aired live footage from Gawsaq, showing Iraqi troops in armored vehicles and Humvees rolling through dusty streets as gunfire rattled. Thick black smoke could be seen billowing up after airstrikes.
Iraqi forces took Mosul’s international airport and a sprawling military base next to it last week before pushing into Mamun, the first neighborhood in the western half of the city after the airport.
Mosul is Iraq’s second largest city, and its western half is the last significant urban area held by IS in the country.
Iraq declared the city’s eastern half “fully liberated” in January, three months after launching the massive operation to retake the city. Mosul fell to IS in the summer of 2014, along with large swaths of northern and western Iraq.
This story has been corrected to show that the Iraqi general’s family name is al-Hussaini, not Ahmed.