Iraqi PM predicts Mosul victory very soon

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iraqi forces on Tuesday, June 27 pushed towards the river side of Mosul's Old City, their key target in the eight-month campaign to capture Islamic State's de-facto capital, and Iraq's prime minister predicted victory very soon, Reuters says.

Iraqi forces, battling up to 350 militants dug in among civilians in the Old City, said federal police had dislodged IS insurgents from the Ziwani mosque and were only a few days away from ousting militants completely from the Old City.

"The victory announcement will come in a very short time," Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on his website on Monday evening.

"The operation is continuing to free the remaining parts of the Old City," Lieutenant General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) told a Reuters correspondent near the frontline in the heart of the Old City.

Iraqi forces had about 600 meters (2,000 ft) left to cover before they reach Cornishe Street alongside the western bank of the Tigris, Federal Police commander Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat told Iraqi State TV.

"In a few days our forces will reach Cornishe Street and bring the battle to its conclusion," said Jawdat, adding that federal police had forced militants out of Ziwani mosque in the Old City's southwestern corner.

The fall of Mosul would mark the end of the Iraqi half of the "caliphate" proclaimed by Islamic State though the militant group remains in control of large areas of both Iraq and Syria.

In Syria, the Islamic State-held city of Raqqa, is nearly encircled by a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition.