Reuters, Baghdad :
Iraqi forces drove back Islamic State militants in southeastern Mosul on Thursday, making gains in an area where advances have been particularly tough, the military said in a statement.
Rapid response units from Iraq’s federal police advanced in the Sumer district, which lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris river, and also in neighboring Sahiroun, the statement reported by state television said.
Forces have pressed forward much more slowly in that area than units in the east and northeast, who have taken control of a number of neighborhoods in the past week.
The army’s elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), has spearheaded advances in eastern Mosul. The U.S.-backed campaign to recapture Mosul, Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq, has pushed ahead with renewed vigor since the turn of the year after troops got bogged down inside the city in November and December.
New tactics, including one night raid, better defenses against suicide car bomb attacks and improved coordination between the army and security forces, have helped forge momentum, U.S and Iraqi officers say.
The ultra-hardline group’s loss of Mosul would probably spell the end for the Iraqi side of its self-styled caliphate, which it declared after sweeping through parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
Meanwhile, Islamic State jihadists are using small commercial drones to attack Iraqi security forces in the battle for Mosul, a US commander said Wednesday.
Colonel Brett Sylvia, who commands an “advise and assist” US unit in Iraq, said IS fighters are attaching small munitions to quadcopters in an attempt to kill local forces as they retake Mosul, the last major IS bastion in Iraq.
“They are small drones with small munitions that they’ve been dropping,” Sylvia said.
While the munitions were no larger than “a small little grenade,” he said, that was enough to do what “Daesh does, and that’s just, you know, indiscriminate killing,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
The group’s use of small drones is not new, Sylvia said, though initially they were mainly used for reconnaissance.
“They are (now) using them to drop munitions as Iraqi forces push into Mosul,” he said.
He added that US-backed local troops have been able to bring down many of the drones, making them “much less effective than they were.” Tens of thousands of allied troops launched a huge offensive on October 17 to retake Mosul and areas around it.
Early in the offensive, a variety of forces quickly retook significant swaths of land, but the going has been much tougher inside the city itself.
Iraqi forces have retaken at least 80 percent of east Mosul from Islamic State jihadists, the spokesman of the special forces spearheading the campaign said Wednesday.
Over the past two weeks, Iraqi forces have overrun several districts and, for the first time, reached the Tigris River that runs through the heart of the city.
Iraqi forces drove back Islamic State militants in southeastern Mosul on Thursday, making gains in an area where advances have been particularly tough, the military said in a statement.
Rapid response units from Iraq’s federal police advanced in the Sumer district, which lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris river, and also in neighboring Sahiroun, the statement reported by state television said.
Forces have pressed forward much more slowly in that area than units in the east and northeast, who have taken control of a number of neighborhoods in the past week.
The army’s elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), has spearheaded advances in eastern Mosul. The U.S.-backed campaign to recapture Mosul, Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq, has pushed ahead with renewed vigor since the turn of the year after troops got bogged down inside the city in November and December.
New tactics, including one night raid, better defenses against suicide car bomb attacks and improved coordination between the army and security forces, have helped forge momentum, U.S and Iraqi officers say.
The ultra-hardline group’s loss of Mosul would probably spell the end for the Iraqi side of its self-styled caliphate, which it declared after sweeping through parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
Meanwhile, Islamic State jihadists are using small commercial drones to attack Iraqi security forces in the battle for Mosul, a US commander said Wednesday.
Colonel Brett Sylvia, who commands an “advise and assist” US unit in Iraq, said IS fighters are attaching small munitions to quadcopters in an attempt to kill local forces as they retake Mosul, the last major IS bastion in Iraq.
“They are small drones with small munitions that they’ve been dropping,” Sylvia said.
While the munitions were no larger than “a small little grenade,” he said, that was enough to do what “Daesh does, and that’s just, you know, indiscriminate killing,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
The group’s use of small drones is not new, Sylvia said, though initially they were mainly used for reconnaissance.
“They are (now) using them to drop munitions as Iraqi forces push into Mosul,” he said.
He added that US-backed local troops have been able to bring down many of the drones, making them “much less effective than they were.” Tens of thousands of allied troops launched a huge offensive on October 17 to retake Mosul and areas around it.
Early in the offensive, a variety of forces quickly retook significant swaths of land, but the going has been much tougher inside the city itself.
Iraqi forces have retaken at least 80 percent of east Mosul from Islamic State jihadists, the spokesman of the special forces spearheading the campaign said Wednesday.
Over the past two weeks, Iraqi forces have overrun several districts and, for the first time, reached the Tigris River that runs through the heart of the city.
