Add Category
Updated
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has arrived in Mosul and congratulated the armed forces for their "victory" over Islamic State after nearly nine months of urban warfare, bringing an end to jihadist rule in the city.
Key points:
- It is almost exactly three years since IS declared its caliphate from Mosul
- The announcement ends eight gruelling months of warfare against the militants
- Without Mosul, IS' influence in Iraq is reduced to mainly rural areas
The militant's defeat in Mosul three years after taking the city is a major blow for the radical Sunni Muslim group, which is also losing ground in its operational base in the Syrian city of Raqqa, where it has planned global attacks.
"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 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.
The battle has also exacted a heavy toll on Iraq's security forces.
Iraq still faces uncertainty and long-term stability will be possible only if the Government contains ethnic and sectarian tensions which have dogged the country since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The fall of Mosul exposes fractures between Arabs and Kurds over disputed territories, and between Sunnis and the Shiite majority.
Land controlled by Islamic State dwindles
The Iraqi Government has not revealed casualty figures, but a funding request from the US Department of Defence 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.
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.
Reuters
Topics: terrorism, unrest-conflict-and-war, territorial-disputes, government-and-politics, iraq
First posted