The BBC and other outlets are reporting street to street fighting may finally be nearing an end in Northern Iraq. ISIS militants over ran Mosul in 2014 and enjoyed a brief period of rule until government led forces with the help of US airpower moved to retake the ancient city last fall. A few groups of fighters are said to be holed up in a small region that is eroding beneath them:
We have witnessed a clear change in the tempo of military operations since IS blew up the famed al-Nuri mosque last Wednesday. The push against the militants has gained momentum - with increased ground operations and air strikes.
We counted about 20 air strikes through the day on Sunday, with helicopter gunships pounding IS targets and a great deal of mortar fire. IS fighters are pinned down in a corner of the Old City, where the narrow streets favour the insurgents. The Iraqis believe the numbers are relatively small - about 300 to 450 - but these are battle hardened jihadists, most of them foreign.
Regardless, ISIS forces counter-attacked, which has reportedly been addressed, and now the remaining fighters are said to be huddling awaiting doom. In an article just out, CNN puts the number of those last few ISIS fighters at around 200 hundred, but keep in mind earlier this week Al-Jazeera was saying there are thousands of innocent civilians potentially still in the deadly crossfire.
Any guesses on who will take credit for victory, assuming that’s where this soon goes, after a solid year or more of careful planning and execution?