Iraqi army vanquishes ISIS stronghold in Mosul

In its last effort to uproot ISIS from Mosul, Iraqi forces achieved a symbolic victory by taking a landmark mosque in the city’s center. 

Iraqi forces on Thursday captured the compound of a landmark mosque in Mosul that was blown up last week by the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group — a hugely symbolic site from where the top ISIS leader declared an Islamic “caliphate” nearly three years ago.

The advance comes as Iraqi troops push deeper into the Old City, a densely populated neighborhood west of the Tigris River, where the al-Nouri Mosque with its 12th century al-Hadba minaret once stood, and where the ISIS terrorists now make their last stand in what are expected to be the final days of the battle for Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.

Iraqi special forces reached the al-Nuri Mosque compound and took control of the surrounding streets on Thursday afternoon, following a dawn push into the area, Lt. Gen. Abdul Wahab al-Saadi of the elite force told The Associated Press.

Damaged and destroyed houses dot the route Iraqi forces have carved into the congested district — along a landscape of destruction where the stench of rotting bodies rises from under the rubble.

Thursday’s push comes more than a week after Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul’s last ISIS-held parts of the Old City neighborhood, with its narrow alleyways and dense clusters of homes.

Taking the mosque is a symbolic victory — from its pulpit, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in July 2014 declared a self-styled Islamic “caliphate,” encompassing territories then-held by the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

Iraqi and coalition officials said ISIS blew up the mosque complex last week. The ISIS group has blamed a US airstrike for the destruction.

‘The State of Myth Has Fallen’

After months of fighting, the ISIS hold in Mosul has shrunk to less than 2 square kilometers (0.8 square miles) of territory, but the advances have come at considerable cost.

“There are hundreds of bodies under the rubble,” said special forces Maj. Dhia Thamir, deployed inside the Old City. He added that all the dead bodies along the special forces’ route were of ISIS fighters.

Special forces Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi acknowledged that some civilians were killed by airstrikes and artillery in the fight for the Old City. “Of course there is collateral damage, it is always this way in war,” he said.

“The houses are very old,” he said, referring to the Old City, “so any bombardment causes them to collapse completely.”

Al-Aridi said the clearing of the mosque will likely require specialized engineering teams, since the terrorists have likely rigged the site with explosives.

In Baghdad, state TV declared the capture of al-Nuri Mosque with an urgent text scroll that said: “The State of Myth Has Fallen.”

By: AP