Troops working to push the militants further back

Iraqi forces saw off an overnight Islamic State counter-attack near Mosul’s main government building hours after they recaptured it, a military official said on Wednesday, and troops sought to push the militants further back.

Islamic State fighters used car bombs in the assault, Major General Ali Kadhem al-Lami of the Federal Police’s Fifth Division told a Reuters correspondent near the site. “Today we’re clearing the area which was liberated,” he said.

Military officials had said that Rapid Response troops, an elite interior ministry division, on Tuesday recaptured the provincial government headquarters, the central bank branch and the museum where militants filmed themselves destroying priceless statues in 2015.

“The museum is completely empty of all artifacts. They were stolen, possibly smuggled,” Mr. Lami said. Reuters was not yet able to access the museum to verify.

Mr. Lami said most of the fighters that had fought around the governorate building were local but there were some foreigners. “An order was issued for foreign fighters with families to withdraw with them. Those who do not have a family should stay and fight, whether foreign or local,” he said. Iraqi forces, backed by U.S.-led air power and military advisers, have fought since October in an intensive campaign to drive the ultra-hardline militants out of Mosul, Islamic State’s last major stronghold in the country.

They recaptured the eastern half of the city in January and launched assaults on the western side, across the Tigris river, on February 19.

Islamic State fighters are retreating further into the west of the city, military officials say, but are putting up stiff resistance, hiding among the civilian population and deploying car bombs and snipers.

Cross-border strikes

Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, meanwhile, said Iraq would continue hitting Islamic State targets in Syria, as well as in neighbouring countries if they give their approval.

Mr. Abadi on February 24 announced the first Iraqi air strike on Syrian territory, targeting Islamic State positions in retaliation for bomb attacks in Baghdad. The ultra-hardline jihadist group has lost most cities it captured in northern and western Iraq in 2014 and 2015.