Iraqi Forces Battle towards Landmark Mosul Mosque

Rasa - Reports said Iraq's federal police forces are engaged in fierce street battles against ISIL militants in the narrow alleys of Mosul's Old City as they are inching closer towards the al-Nuri Mosque in Western part of the Northern city of Iraq.

News ID: 428881

Date: 13 April 2017 - 22:06

RNA - The al-Nuri Mosque is of great symbolic importance in the battle against ISIL as the terror group's ringleader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his infamous sermon in 2014, NRT reported.

Iraqi forces backed their allied forces have retaken most of the city but are struggling to dislodge the militants from several districts in the West, including the Old City.

Earlier this week, Iraqi troops found an ISIL’ ammunition depot in Bab al-Jadid district containing almost 1,000 rockets and 1,000 bags of chemical material used to make bombs and explosives according to police Lieutenant Colonel Hussein Zghayer.

But the push against ISIL in Western Mosul is bogged down with Iraqi security forces fighting in a warren of small streets in the old part of the city.

ISIL has used hundreds of car bombs along with drones rigged with explosives in Mosul.

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