Iraq Special Forces Advance in East Mosul
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iraqi special forces made further advances against Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) in Mosul, pushing Takfiri militants from another eastern district and edging closer to army units nearby, officers in the city said.
The Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) said it was working to seize areas overlooking Mosul University in the city's northeast, after taking over a nearby district, Reuters reported.
The ground troops launched rockets and air strikes against the militants, who responded with mortars and sniper fire. Residents trickled out of the conflict zone but many also returned to their homes in areas retaken from Daesh in recent days.
The latest advances brought more of eastern Mosul under Iraqi forces' control a day after elite units reached the Tigris river, as the offensive to drive the foreign-backed terrorists from its last major stronghold in the country pressed ahead with renewed vigor.
Reaching the river, which runs through the center of the northern city where up to 1.5 million people are still thought to be living, will allow Iraqi forces to begin assaults on western districts still under Daesh’s full control.
"The Baladiyat neighborhood is done (recaptured) and Sukkar should be done before nightfall," Major-General Sami al-Aradi of the CTS said.
"This area is very important because it overlooks the university (which) is a central district ... If it falls we will control the forests, the presidential palaces and the eastern bank of the Tigris," he said.
Askari said Daesh terrorists have used the university's laboratories to make biological weapons and store chemicals.
On October 16, 2016, the Iraqi army backed by Federal Police and Hashd al-Shaabi launched a massive operation to retake Mosul, the last major stronghold of the Takfiri militants of Daesh in the Arab country.
In recent years, Iraq has been facing the threat of terrorism, mainly posed by the Daesh terrorist group.
Daesh militants made swift advances in much of northern and western Iraq over the summer of 2014, after capturing large swaths of northern Syria.
However, a combination of concentrated attacks by the Iraqi military and the volunteer forces, who rushed to take arms after top Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling for fight against the militants, blunted the edge of Daesh offensive and later forced the Takfiri group to withdraw from most of the areas it had occupied.
