The Islamic State mounted a counterattack in the flash-point city of Mosul on Friday, delaying the prospect of an imminent Iraqi victory, according to military officials.

Commanders said the militant group launched a wave of suicide attacks in the Old City around midday, threatening the government’s gains in an area that has become the Islamic State’s final redoubt in the city.

“They sent some suicide bombers today along with fighters, and our forces killed them all,” said Brig. Gen Shakir Rodhan of the army’s 16th Division, dismissing the pushback as “a normal thing in any battle.”

The development appeared to underscore the fragility of military victories against the Islamic State in Mosul, where forces exhausted by the grueling eight-month offensive there find themselves vulnerable to counterattacks as they try to reestablish control.

The Islamic State’s capture of the northern Iraqi city in June 2014 capped the group’s efforts to seize control of large swaths of territory it would come to describe as its caliphate. Three years on, the loss of the city would represent a near-fatal blow to its territorial pretensions.

1 of 48 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × The battle for Mosul View Photos Iraqi forces continue their most ambitious fight against the Islamic State. Caption Iraqi forces continue their most ambitious fight against the Islamic State. Iraqi Federal police celebrate in West Mosul. Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.

[U.S.-backed forces breach wall of Raqqa’s Old City in the heart of Syrian ISIS capital]

Iraqi units have cornered the militants in a sliver of land near the Tigris River. The offensive has been led by elite U.S.-trained special forces, but as the Islamic State mounts a final stand, territory to the north is being held by Iraq’s regular army and the police.

Iraqi commanders said Friday that the fight for the last 10,000 square yards of Islamic State territory had slowed considerably because of the number of civilians still trapped in the area — as many as 20,000, according to U.N. estimates.

“There are too many families there, and we came to liberate, not to kill,” said Lt. Gen. Sami al-Aridhi, a special forces commander.

U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Mosul have shattered neighborhoods and left hundreds of civilians dead, according to monitoring groups. In a report released Friday, the Pentagon said that coalition airstrikes had killed 119 civilians between April 19 and May 23, nearly half of them in or near Mosul.

Monitoring groups say the toll is far higher and have urged the coalition to investigate more of its strikes.

In four recently recaptured neighborhoods of western Mosul visited this week, many of the houses had been reduced to rubble and rebar, making it hard to tell where one ended and another began.

The bodies of Islamic State fighters lay where they had fallen, rotting in the sun.

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Iraqi forces recapture iconic Mosul mosque, now little more than rubble

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