RNA - Abdul-Ghani al-Assadi, commander of the Iraqi army’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service, said in a statement that CTS are currently awaiting the arrival of Federal Police and Rapid Response and army troops to jointly lay siege on the ISIL-held Old City from the North, Al Waght reported.
In a statement to Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) website, Al-Assadi noted that “the major challenge forces are facing in Mosul is the existence of a large number of civilians in narrow areas with small, interconnected houses.”
He added that ISIL terrorists are currently in control over only four square kilometers of Western Mosul.
Elsewhere, Iraqi pro-government fighters from Popular Mobilization Forces have liberated more areas previously held by ISIL terrorists west of Mosul as they continue their joint operations with army soldiers to completely eject the militants out of the country’s second largest city.
The media bureau of the volunteer forces, commonly known by the Arabic world Hashd al-Shaabi, announced in a statement that the Iraqi forces had regained control over at least 17 villages, including Hassanan, Umm Kharab, Abu Rasin, Umm al-Zobaa', and Tal Mas’ada, near the town of al-Baaj.
The Iraqi army soldiers and allied volunteer fighters have been leading a major operation to recapture the city since October 2016. They took control of Eastern Mosul in January and launched the battle in the West in February.
The Mosul liberation operation has taken longer than scheduled as ISIL terrorists are using civilians as human shields to slow the advance of the Iraqi forces.
Meanwhile, the United Nations’ human rights chief says the ISIL terrorist group executed 163 civilians last week to prevent them from fleeing the Iraqi city of Mosul, where the army is leading a counter-terrorism operation.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein released the figure during an opening address to the UN Human Rights Council in the Swiss city of Geneva.
“My staff reported to me that bodies of murdered Iraqi men, women, and children still lay on the streets of the al-Shira neighborhood of Western Mosul, after at least 163 people were shot and killed by ISIL to prevent them from fleeing,” he said, adding that there were also reports of missing people from the district.
The UN official further warned that “the brutality of ISIL and other terrorist groups seemingly knows no bounds.”
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