Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has flown into the city of Mosul to congratulate the Iraqi soldiers and fighters for defeating Islamic State and taking back control of the city.
Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has announced "victory" over Islamic State group fighters in the city of Mosul, his office said.
Article copied from the ABC News website on 9/7/2017
Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has announced "victory" over Islamic State group fighters in the city of Mosul, his office said.
"The commander in chief of the armed forces [Prime Minister] Haider al-Abadi arrived in the liberated city of Mosul and congratulated the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people for the great victory," a statement from his office said.
The victory comes after eight months of urban warfare, bringing an end to three years of jihadist rule in the city.
After the fighting, the real test begins
The Iraqi military says the battle for Mosul has entered its final phase, but what comes next will be crucial to the international battle against the Islamic State group.
The battle has left large parts of Mosul in ruins, killed thousands of civilians and displaced nearly 1 million people.
The decaying corpses of militants lay in the narrow streets of the Old City where Islamic State had staged a last stand against Iraqi forces backed by a US-led coalition.
The group vowed to "fight to the death" in Mosul, but Iraqi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told state TV earlier on Sunday that 30 militants had been killed attempting to escape by swimming across the River Tigris that bisects the city.
Cornered in a shrinking area, the militants have resorted to sending women suicide bombers among the thousands of civilians who are emerging from the battlefield wounded, malnourished and fearful.
Life on Mosul's front line
Mosul is in a state of suspended animation, with control of the city split between Iraqi Government forces and the Islamic State group, Middle East correspondent Matt Brown writes.
The battle has also exacted a heavy toll on Iraq's security forces.
The Iraqi Government has not revealed casualty figures, but a funding request from the US Department of Defense said the elite Counter-Terrorism Service, which has spearheaded the fight in Mosul, had suffered a loss of 40 per cent.
The United States leads an international coalition that is backing the campaign against Islamic State in Mosul by conducting airstrikes against the militants and assisting troops on the ground.
Land controlled by Islamic State dwindles
Without Mosul — by far the largest city to fall under militant control — Islamic State's dominion in Iraq will be reduced to mainly rural, desert areas west and south of the city where tens of thousands of people live.
It is almost exactly three years since the ultra-hardline group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a "caliphate" spanning Syria and Iraq from the pulpit of the medieval Grand al-Nuri mosque.
Mr al-Abadi declared the end of Islamic State's "state of falsehood" a week ago, after security forces retook the mosque — although only after retreating militants blew it up.
The United Nations predicts it will cost more than $US1 billion to repair basic infrastructure in Mosul.
In some of the worst affected areas, almost no buildings appear to have escaped damage and Mosul's dense construction means the extent of the devastation might be underestimated, UN officials said.
Article copied from the ABC News website on 9/7/2017
