Alwaght- The operation by the Iraqi army to liberate the northern city of Mosul from ISIS terrorist group is at its final stages, Iraqi Prime Minister said on Sunday.
Haider al-Abadi said Iraqi army and volunteer forces have liberated about two third of Nineveh province from ISIS terrorists.
Speaking in an event to honor the country’s national Day of Armed Forces, he said after liberating the majority of the province, the operation is in its final phases.
Mosul, along with three towns in the western Anbar Province, is where the remaining ISIS terrorists are holed up. The terrorist group captured Mosul in 2014, when it started its campaign of terror in the northern and western parts of Iraq.
The advance in Mosul has been slowed down due to the presence of hundreds of thousands of civilians, who are being prevented by the terrorists from leaving the city.
However, it was reported on Sunday that members of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), who are fighting ISIS terrorists in Mosul alongside allied fighters and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, had reached the eastern bank of Tigris River.
Moreover, Iraqi security forces established control over a mosque, where purported ISIS ringleader Ibrahim al-Samarrai, well known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, gave his famous speech on the formation of the terror group.