Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi and senior military commanders have claimed that elite Iraqi forces had driven Daesh militants from all districts of eastern Mosul after more than three months of combat, as Daesh claimed deadly attacks on neighbourhoods that were supposedly liberated.

The Iraqi premier said last night in a press conference from the capital Baghdad that his forces had begun to move on western Mosul after having pushed Daesh out of its eastern sectors.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant-General Talib Al-Jughati, speaking today from Bartella near Mosul, said the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) who have spearheaded the three-month-old offensive against Daesh in the northern Iraqi city, had taken control of the eastern bank of the Tigris River.

Hours later, Colonel Ahmed Al-Jubouri of the Ninawa Operations Command, said that the Iraqi military had now gained control of 95 per cent of east Mosul.

Regular army troops were still fighting the ultra-hardline militants in northeast Mosul, however, according to a further military statement.

“Today we celebrate…the liberation of the eastern bank in Mosul,” Al-Jughati told reporters in Bartella just outside Mosul.

He said that capturing the western half of the city, which Daesh still fully control, would be an easier task.

West Mosul to be harder

Iraqi and US military officers have previously said that the more densely populated west bank could pose additional military challenges. This is not only because of population density, but also because the militants have a greater concentration of forces there.

Bridges across the Tigris, which bisects Mosul from north to south, have been hit by US-led airstrikes intended to impede Daesh reinforcements joining the fighting in the eastern neighbourhoods, and more recently by the militants trying to block a future westward advance by the military.

However, military analysts have indicated that in order to cross the Tigris, Iraqi forces would either have to construct temporary bridges under heavy Daesh fire, or else attempt to push in from Tal Afar, west of Mosul.

The army, special forces and elite police units have operated in tandem to capture different areas of eastern Mosul. The army is mostly deployed in the north, the CTS in the east, and the federal police in the south.

Army units advanced into the northeastern neighbourhoods of Qadissiyah and Al-Arabi, the military statement said.

Earlier reports cited US military commanders as indicating that the fighting in Mosul had been so bloody, that the elite soldiers of the CTS had been depleted by around 50 per cent. It is therefore unlikely that the fight for western Mosul will be easier than the more than three months spent in eastern parts of the city.

Prime Minister Al-Abadi said last night that Daesh had been severely weakened in the Mosul campaign, and that the military had begun “moving” against it in western Mosul, without elaborating.

Reuters cited residents reached by phone as saying that airstrikes against Daesh deep inside western Mosul had increased in recent days. More than a dozen missile strikes in the Yarmouk district targeted weapons depots and workshops the militants used to make explosives and destroyed two car bombs stored there, one resident said.

Some raids had killed or wounded civilians, including in the Mosul Al-Jadida neighbourhood, claiming 30 civilian lives.