Heavy street fighting slows Iraqi army in final push against ISIL in Mosul's Old City
ADVERTISEMENTStreet fighting in Mosul’s narrow alleys as Iraqi army units get closer to the city’s
ruined al-Nuri mosque is intensifying, but the army says it will not enter the mosque complex as ISIL
is likely to have booby-trapped the rubble.
On Thursday morning Iraqi state sources announced the fall of what it dubbed the “mythical state”
but on the ground the Islamic extremists are still putting up stiff resistance, and the army
says going is slow. ISIL’s last Mosul bastion is the Old City, and the army is retaking it metre by metre to try and
protect the civilians trapped within, at a speed of between 50 to 100 metres per day.
Some 700 to 800 metres remain to be retaken.