Iraqis: Eastern Mosul ours

Forces draw up plans to retake city’s western part from ISIS

Iraqis on Wednesday cross a bridge destroyed by Islamic State militants in a neighborhood in eastern Mosul recently liberated by government troops.
Iraqis on Wednesday cross a bridge destroyed by Islamic State militants in a neighborhood in eastern Mosul recently liberated by government troops.

BAGHDAD -- U.S.-backed Iraqi government troops announced Wednesday that they were in "full control" of eastern Mosul after routing Islamic State militants from that part of the northern city, three months after the major operation started.

The achievement was a "big victory," said Iraqi army Lt. Gen. Talib Shaghati, who commands the counterterrorism forces, describing the success of the Iraqi forces as "unprecedented."

Shaghati, who spoke to reporters in the town of Bartella, just east of Mosul, said plans were now being drawn up to retake the western part of the city from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. He did not elaborate on when that part of the operation would begin.

Wednesday's advance came after Iraqi troops recently intensified their push into the last Islamic State-held neighborhoods in Mosul's eastern sector, closing in on the Tigris River, which roughly divides the city. Stiff resistance by the militants, thousands of civilians being trapped in their houses by the fighting and bad weather had in the past slowed the advances of the troops.

However, skirmishes and clashes continued in some pockets along the Tigris in eastern Mosul, said Iraqi special forces Maj. Ali Hussein, who added that his unit still was pushing into the Ghabat area along the riverbank. Small-arms fire could be heard and at least one civilian was wounded by mortar fire.

Also, some commanders on the ground disputed Shaghati's claim of "full control" of eastern Mosul, with Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Raheed Yar Allah saying the eastern side "has not been fully liberated ... and the advance is still continuing."

Yar Allah, who commands army operations in Nineveh, where Mosul is the provincial capital, said the special forces "have done their duty" in eastern Mosul.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi issued a statement, posted on his website, saying "work is underway to liberate" Ghabat and the area housing Saddam Hussein's former presidential palaces in eastern Mosul. He also vowed to liberate the western side of the city.

But the prospect of retaking western Mosul looms heavy on Iraqi forces, despite the support they have from the U.S.-led coalition, as well as Sunni and Shiite volunteer militias. The western half of the city is home to some of Mosul's oldest neighborhoods, with narrow streets packed with buildings that will complicate the urban fight.

So far in the Mosul offensive, Iraq's counterterrorism forces, which are by far the military's most battle-seasoned unit, have done most of the fighting, advancing from east of the city.

Regular Iraqi army troops are pushing from the city's southeast and northern edges, and the federal security forces from farther to the west.

Mosul -- Iraq's second-largest city and the Islamic State group's last urban stronghold in the country -- fell to the Islamic State in the summer of 2014, when the militant group captured large areas of northern and western Iraq.

The operation has also left more than 148,000 people homeless, according to the United Nations. Nearly 12,500 people have been forced to flee their homes just over the past week, the U.N. said.

More than 1 million people were estimated to still be living in Mosul in October, when Iraqi forces opened the operation to retake the city.

Information for this article was contributed by Susannah George of The Associated Press.

A Section on 01/19/2017

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