Militants from the so-called "Islamic State" group have launched a gas attack in a newly-liberated area in western Mosul, the Iraqi military has claimed. They spoke anonymously as they were not authorized to speak to media.
According to him, since the effort to take Mosul back from ISIS began on Feb.19, Iraqi forces supported by coalition airstrikes had cleared almost 200 square miles of territory.
Reporting from the Maliya neighborhood in western Mosul, Rudaw correspondent Farhad Dolamari said ISIS militants have forced the advancing Iraqi troops to withdraw from Kornish Street in the Old Mosul district.
A morgue worker in east Mosul estimated that 2,000 ISIS fighters had been killed by Iraqi forces in the fight to recapture that half of the city, which took three months between mid-October and late January.
The Syrian and Arab forces have repelled a "significant number" of ISIS attacks as they have advanced on Raqqa, he said.
As many as 500,000 others are in IS-controlled parts of western Mosul, where fighting is still underway.
Thursday battles are part of slow push toward the western edge of Mosul's densely populated old city center, where roughly 400,000 residents are believed to still be trapped under IS rule.
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In early March, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations Mohamed Ali Alhakim told reporters that there was "no evidence" that ISIS had used chemical weapons in Mosul.
Iraq's federal police moved forces 200 meters deeper into the Old City, getting closer to al-Nuri mosque, a statement said.
It also said the militants were increasingly using suicide motorbikes attacks.
Iraqi Federal Police forces "are engaged in hard, house-to-house clashes with Daesh fighters inside the Old City", a media officer from these units told Reuters.
Khalil Al-Ashouri said the water in Mosul is unfit for human consumption while food prices in areas under Daesh control are so high that one kilogramme of rice costs up to $36.
"They have really two choices: they can surrender to the Iraqi security forces, or they're going to be killed", he said.
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