OLD CITY BATTLE
Islamic State in Mosul ‘encircled by Iraq army’
Erbil, Iraq — Iraq’s army said it had encircled Islamic State’s stronghold in the Old City of Mosul on Tuesday after taking over an area to the north of the densely populated historic district. The army’s ninth armoured division seized the al-Shifaa district, which includes the city’s main hospitals, alongside the western bank of the Tigris River, a military statement said. The fall of al-Shifaa means the Old City in the eastern half of Mosul is now surrounded by US-backed government forces, deployed north, west, south and east, across the river. The battle for the Old City is becoming the deadliest in the eight-month US-backed offensive to capture Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq and the largest city the group came to control in the country. On Monday a mine explosion at the Old City frontline killed two journalists, Stephane Villeneuve from France and Bakhtiar Haddad from Iraq, and wounded two other French reporters, according to foreign ministry sources in Paris. A...
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