Iraq

Daesh Militants Seal Off Mosul Mosque Preparing for Last Stand

Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) Takfiri terrorists have closed the streets around Mosul’s Grand al-Nuri Mosque, residents said, apparently in preparation for a final showdown in the battle over their last major stronghold in Iraq, a report said.

Dozens of the terrorists were seen by residents taking up positions in the past 48 hours around the medieval mosque, the site where Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an its so-called caliphate in July 2014.

Daesh’s black flag has been flying from the mosque since the militants captured Mosul and seized swathes of Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014.

Iraqi government forces retook eastern Mosul in January and began a new push on Saturday to capture the group’s remaining enclave in western Mosul, comprising of the Old City center where the mosque is located, and three adjacent districts alongside the western bank of the River Tigris.

The fall of the city would, in effect, mark the end of the terrorist group in Iraq. Meanwhile in Syria, the Syrian government forces as well as Kurdish forces are making gains against the Daesh militants in the city of Raqqa, the militants’ de facto capital in that country.

Up to 200,000 people still live in harrowing conditions behind Daesh lines in Mosul, running low on food, water and medicine, and with difficult access to hospitals, the United Nations said on Sunday.

The Grand al-Nuri Mosque has become a symbolic focus of the campaign, with Iraqi commanders privately saying they hope to capture it during Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month which started over the weekend in Iraq.

But a battle in or near the mosque would put the building and its famed leaning minaret at risk, experts have said.

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