Iraqi
security forces expect to take full control of Mosul in the next hours as
Islamic State's defensive lines collapse, state TV reported on Saturday.
Air strikes
and artillery salvoes pounded the jihadists' last bastion in the city as black
smoke billowed over it, a Reuters TV crew said.
"We are
seeing now the last meters and then final victory will be announced," said
a TV speaker, citing the channel's correspondents embedded with security forces
battling in Islamic State's redoubt in the Old City of Mosul, by the Tigris
river. "It's a matter of hours," she said.
A military
spokesman cited by the TV said the insurgents' defense lines were collapsing.
Iraqi commanders say the insurgents are fighting for each meter with snipers,
grenades and suicide bombers, forcing security forces to fight house-to-house
in the densely populated maze of narrow alleyways.
A U.S.-led
international coalition is providing air and ground support to the
eight-month-old offensive to wrest back Mosul, once the de facto capital of
Islamic State in Iraq.
Months of
urban warfare have displaced 900,000 people, about half the city's pre-war
population, and killed thousands, according to aid organizations.
Mosul was by
far the largest city seized by Islamic State in its offensive three years ago
where the ultra-hardline group declared its "caliphate" over
adjoining parts of Iraq and Syria.
Stripped of
Mosul, Islamic State's dominion in Iraq will be reduced to mainly rural, desert
areas west and south of the city where tens of thousands of people live. The
militants are expected to keep up attacks on selected targets across Iraq.
Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi declared the end of Islamic State's "state of
falsehood" a week ago, after security forces took Mosul's mediaeval Grand
al-Nuri mosque - although only after retreating militants blew it up.
The United
Nations predicts it will cost more than $1 billion to repair basic
infrastructure in Mosul. Iraq's regional Kurdish leader said on Thursday in a
Reuters interview that the Baghdad central government had failed to prepare a
post-battle political, security and governance plan.
The offensive
has damaged thousands of structures in Mosul's Old City and destroyed nearly
500 buildings, satellite imagery released by the United Nations on Thursday
showed.
In some of
the worst affected areas, almost no buildings appear to have escaped damage and
Mosul's dense construction means the extent of the devastation might be
underestimated, U.N. officials said.
Reuters
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