Iraq forces comb west Mosul after IS counter-attacks

Iraqi forces launched a house-to-house search operation Monday in parts of west Mosul after a surprise attack by Islamic State group jihadists recently expelled from the area.

Diehard IS fighters are putting up fierce resistance as an Iraqi offensive for Mosul's Old City, where a few hundred jihadists are believed to be holed up, entered its second week.

On Sunday the jihadists launched a string of counter-attacks on the Tanak and Yarmuk neighbourhoods of west Mosul from which they had been routed, leaving several people dead, officials said.

A top commander in the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), which sent forces to fight the IS gunmen, said the attackers had infiltrated the area by blending in with returning displaced civilians.

"The group came with the displaced and settled in the Tanak district. They regrouped and launched counter-attacks," Staff Lieutenant General Abdulwahab al-Saadi told AFP.

"Yarmuk is being searched house to house," he said, adding that two groups of IS attackers were still believed to be in the area, which lies on the western edge of the city.

"There are martyrs who were killed by Daesh," the medic said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.A CTS medic said the attack had caused deaths but he could not say how many.

He said 15 to 20 jihadist fighters were also killed in the battle.

A local official told AFP the attacks were carried out by "sleeper cells" as a diversionary tactic to ease the siege on the Old City, where commanders say jihadists only control about one square kilometre.

"Operations to flush out pockets controlled by Daesh are ongoing," he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

- Forces hoist the flag -

The latest fighting has focused on the neighbourhood of Faruq on the northern edges of the Old City and part of the district, known as Faruq al-Ola has been taken by the Iraqi forces.Iraqi forces, led by the CTS, launched a perilous assault on the Old City in central Mosul on June 18, eight months into an offensive to retake Mosul, the country's biggest military operation in years.

"CTS forces liberated Faruq al-Ola neighbourhood in the Old City," said Lieutenant General Abdul Ami Rashid Yarallah of the Joint Operations Command coordinating the battle against IS.

"The Iraqi flag has been raised over buildings after large losses to the enemy," he added.

AFP reporters who toured the area gave a harrowing account of the devastation in the narrow alleyways of the Old City.

Buildings have been levelled entirely with electrical cables dangling from them and debris from blown up cars found on the upper floors of those still standing.

Carcasses of motorcycles and scooters that had been rigged with explosives and blown up are scattered along the sides of the narrow streets -- a legacy of IS suicide bombers who used them to slow the advance of the Iraqi forces.

And reporters spoke of the stench of decomposing bodies that permeated, including from the bloated remains of a jihadist half buried under the ruins of a building who died holding his weapon.

More than 800,000 people have had to flee their homes and many are still housed in overcrowded camps.Hundreds of IS fighters have been killed since the operation started in October 17, and hundreds of civilians have also died.

- 'Hunchback' -

CTS Lieutenant Colonel Salam al-Obeidi told AFP that 65 to 70 percent of the Old City "has been liberated".

"There is less than a square kilometre left to retake," he said on Sunday, speaking inside the Old City near what is left of the Hadba leaning minaret the jihadists blew up last week.

The Old City resonated with the sound of gunfire from automatic rifles, exploding rockets and the thuds of mortar rounds.

The cylindrical shaft of the minaret came tumbling down when IS on June 21 detonated explosives the jihadists had rigged to it.The ornamental brickwork on the base of the 12th century Hadba (Hunchback) minaret, which was Mosul's symbol and one of the most recognisable landmarks in Iraq, was visible in the background.

The jihadists simultaneously blew up the nearby Nuri mosque, where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi gave his first sermon as IS leader in July 2014, his last public appearance to date.

Source: AFP