Iraqi forces battle toward heart of Mosul's Old City

Iraqi forces battle toward heart of Mosul's Old City

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iraqi forces battled their way along two streets that meet in the heart of Mosul's Old City on Friday, June 23, and said they aimed to open routes for civilians to flee Islamic State's last stand there, Reuters reports.

U.S.-trained urban warfare units are leading the fight in the maze of narrow alleyways of the Old City, the last district in the hands of the Sunni Islamist insurgents.

Iraqi authorities are hoping to declare victory in the northern Iraqi city in the Muslim Eid holiday, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, during the next few days.

Military analysts say government troops' advance will gather pace after Islamic State fighters blew up the 850-year-old al-Nuri mosque and its famous leaning minaret on Wednesday.

Islamic State retaliated with a triple bombing on a neighborhood in east Mosul, the other side the Tigris River.

The attack was carried out by three people who detonated explosive belts, killing and wounding an unspecified number of people, according to a military statement.

Destruction of the mosque gives troops more freedom in attack as they no longer have to worry about damaging the ancient site.

It was in the al-Nuri mosque that Islamic State's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaimed its "caliphate" over parts of Iraq and Syria three years ago.

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support in the 8-month-old offensive to drive the militants from their de facto capital in Iraq.

A map published by the Iraqi forces media office showed the elite Counter Terrorism Service pushing along al-Faruq Street, from north to south, and Nineveh Street, from east to west.

The two roads cross in the center of the Old City. When the troops reach this point, they will have isolated the remaining IS fighters in four separate pockets.

"The aim is to open ways for civilians to evacuate. We give them indications by loudspeaker when it's possible," an Iraqi military spokesman told Reuters by phone.

Some 7,000 civilians were brought out of the Old City this week, the Iraqi state news website said. Several street intersections were seized during the day.

Reuters journalists in Mosul saw people reaching safety. Some were injured and some had been carried on army humvees to rear positions where they were given bananas, biscuits and water.

"The army's 16th division evacuated us," said a man who had fled with his wife and 15-day-old baby.

"God bless them," said another man, who was limping.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported an influx of wounded to its trauma clinic in the west of the war-torn city on Friday morning.

"This ... is yet another example of the horrific suffering and indiscriminate violence suffered by civilians, including women and children," said Jonathan Henry, MSF Emergency Coordinator for West Mosul, in a statement.

More than 100,000 civilians, of whom half are children, are trapped in the crumbling old houses of the Old City, with little food, water or medical treatment.

Aid organizations say Islamic State has stopped many from leaving, using them as human shields. Hundreds of civilians fleeing the Old City have been killed in the past three weeks.

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