Iraqi troops screen Mosul men in hunt for suicide bombers

PanARMENIAN.Net - One by one, hundreds of Mosul residents raised their shirts to prove they did not have suicide bombs strapped to their bodies, closely watched by Iraqi special forces fearful of the threat posed by Islamic State, even in areas they now control, Reuters reports.

The men then handed over their identification cards so their names could be checked against a database of wanted Islamic State members, part of the painstaking process of clearing jihadists from each neighborhood of their Mosul stronghold.

Every time Iraqi forces capture a section of Mosul in their offensive against Islamic State, it can take up to a week to ensure it is clear of militants.

Some hide in the network of tunnels they have constructed, while others mix with thousands of displaced people or stay behind to form sleeper cells in the crowded neighborhoods of Mosul, a city of more than one million people.

Iraqi security officials say they have seized a large area of eastern Mosul in the biggest ground operation in the country since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Iraqi leaders hope the Mosul campaign will bring stability after years of sectarian bloodshed followed by the arrival of Islamic State, an ultra-hardline Sunni group, in 2014.

While the Iraqis seem confident of victory, the security clamp-down in the Shuqaq al-Khadra'a district of Mosul suggests Islamic State still poses a threat even as it loses territory.