Alwaght- The liberation of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul is imminent and the days of ISIS’s self-declared caliphate are numbered, the UN envoy for Iraq says.
Speaking at the UN Security Council on Monday, Jan Kubis however warned that fighting remains "a tremendous challenge" because ISIS fighters are increasingly using civilians as human shields in "a last-gasp effort that reveals little more than the inherent inhuman barbarity of the terrorists".
The city's east was declared fully liberated in January and the fight for the west was launched the following month. It has been marked by some of the most grueling and deadly combat in the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to date.
The strategic Iraqi city was occupied by ISIS terrorists during a lightning attack in June 2014 that left nearly one-third of Iraq in their hands and plunged the country into a severe crisis.
ISIS's "caliphate", declared after the June 2014 military campaign, once stretched across northern Syria through much of northern and western Iraq. But the foreign-backed Takfiri terrorists group, also known as ISIL and Daesh, is now under attack in both countries and the territory it controls continues to shrink rapidly.
Sources say Iraqi troops are now focusing their attention on the last three ISIS-held districts in the heart of Mosul; namely the so-called Old City, Al-Zinjili and Al-Shafaa neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, more ready-made ISIS car bombs were seized in the newly liberated areas while specialist Iraqi forces continue with their dangerous demining task throughout Iraq’s second largest city.
Less than 500 ISIS fighters are said to have survived the current Iraqi onslaught. However, these insurgents have now fortified the Old City in a desperate bid to keep hold of the highly symbolic Al-Nouri mosque, the site where ISIS ringleader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi established his so-called caliphate.
Iraqi army forces and Popular Mobilization Forces launched their offensive to retake Mosul last October and since then they have made sweeping gains against Takfiri terrorists.
The terrorists have been committing heinous crimes against all ethnic and religious communities in Iraq, including Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and Christians.
