ISIS has enemy inside gates

Iraqi forces fought their way into jihadist-held Mosul on Tuesday, the military said, as a top commander declared the “true liberation” of the city from the ISIS had begun.

Just over two weeks into the massive offensive to retake Mosul—ISIS’ last major stronghold in Iraq—the Army said its forces had managed to push within city limits. Troops had “entered the Judaidat Al-Mufti area, within the left bank of the city of Mosul”, the Joint Operations Command said in a statement.

Mosul is split by the Tigris River with the eastern half of the city known as the left bank. Judaidat al-Mufti is on the southeastern side of the city.

Elite Iraqi forces had also recaptured the key village of Gogjali and taken control of a television station building belonging to a local affiliate of Iraqiya state TV on the eastern edge of the city.

Fighters from the US-trained Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) had pushed into the area amid heavy fighting on the eastern front over the past two days. “Now is the beginning of the true liberation of the city of Mosul,” Staff General Taleb Sheghati al-Kenani, the commander of the CTS, told Iraqiya from Gogjali.

Soldiers from Iraq’s 16th Division also retook a series of villages north of Mosul, according to the Joint Operations Command, while pro-government paramilitaries said they captured villages southwest of the city.

Backed by air and ground support from a US-led coalition, tens of thousands of Iraqi fighters have been converging on Mosul.

Since the offensive was launched on October 17, federal forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters have retaken a series of villages as they advance on the city from the north, east and south.

Some 4,000 to 7,000 jihadists are believed to be in and around Mosul, where IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a cross-border caliphate after the group seized control of large parts of Iraq and neighbouring Syria two years ago.