Seven IS militants killed in western Mosul airstrike

Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Seven Islamic State members were killed Tuesday when unidentified fighter jets bombarded a house in western Mosul, a security source was quoted saying as operations reach the group’s last few entrenchments.

A security source told Shafaaq news website that the strike targeted a house at Iktisadiyeen neighborhood, where intense fighting is ongoing between the group and Iraqi troops eyeing the neighboring Old City.

Those killed included the group’s commander in charge of booby-trapped vehicles attacks, according to the source.

Iraqi government forces are close to retaking western Mosul and declaring the full recapture of the city that fell in IS grip in 2014. The eastern section was retaken in January.

Earlier on Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Yahia Rasoul, spokesperson of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, said Iraqi troops became in control over 89.5 percent of territory at western Mosul, having killed more than 16000 militants since the launch of Mosul operations in October.

Iraqi government forces are eyeing the ancient, densely structured and populated Old City, the place where Islamic State’s supreme leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of an “Islamic Caliphate” in 2014. Troops besieged the area for weeks from the south, but turned to the northwestern axis to invade the city earlier this month. IS fighters are believed to have been holding hundreds of thousands at that area as human shields.