Iraqi forces have moved deeper into western Mosul, overrunning a district and edging closer to the most symbolic site of Islamic State’s rule, the Grand Nouri mosque where the “caliphate” was proclaimed more than two years ago.
In a push along the western bank of the Tigris river, federal police units seized an administration building, the Central Bank and the Mosul museum, a site previously used as a meeting point for senior Isis leaders. The assault initially met fierce resistance, but that had ended by dawn on Tuesday.
The prime minister, Haidar al-Abadi, who has staked much on reclaiming Mosul, flew to the city to congratulate troops, whose progress near the river has eclipsed the expectations of battle planners.
Further to the west, however, predictions of a long, grinding fight through dense and dangerous neighbourhoods were playing out, with Iraqi forces consolidating a foothold on the outskirts of the city, but not yet being able to advance.
The most intense fighting is thought to lie around 3 miles (5km) north, where intelligence officials suggest Isis has prepared a network of tunnels and fortifications that will make manoeuvring difficult and could prolong the fight for Isis’s last urban stronghold into the early summer.
US officials estimated almost 6,000 Isis fighters were in Mosul when the fight to retake the city and surrounds was launched on 17 October. Since then at least several thousand militants had been killed, most on the east bank of the river, which was recaptured in early February after more than 100 days of fighting.
The battle for the west bank, the administrative heart of Isis, started on 19 February, with a push from the south aimed at squeezing what remains of the group in Iraq between advancing forces and militia units who have taken up blocking positions to the west.
Though not facing imminent defeat, Isis losses are nearing a critical mass in Mosul. The Central Bank had been used as a clearing house to distribute cash from taxes, oil sales and antiquities trade. The captured government buildings had been vital to the group’s administration.
US Special Forces troops have been active in Mosul and, according to Iraqi commanders, have clashed directly with Isis militants.
Earlier in the war, US and British troops had been seen in Fallujah and Ramadi, as well as villages outside Mosul. However, they have primarily been involved in calling in airstrikes. The British SAS has a significant presence near Erbil and in the eastern deserts of Syria, and several of the US military’s most elite units are also in the area, one on permanent standby to capture the Isis leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and other senior targets.
The UN has said almost 45,000 people have fled western Mosul in the last three weeks, with 13,000 leaving in one day alone. That figure is expected to increase sharply as troops press closer to residential neighbourhoods, where up to 700,000 civilians are thought to remain.
