MOSUL, Iraq – Iraqi forces encountered stiff resistance from ISIS as they pushed to advance deeper into Mosul, resulting in heavy clashes on the eastern side of the city in northern Iraq.
The Iraqi War Media Office reported that forces had gone into 10 new eastern districts Saturday on the left side of the Tigris River that flows through the city.
ISIS deployed drones, car bombs and snipers against the Iraqi forces, Rudaw reporters on the ground said.
The Iraqi army, which entered the city that has been an ISIS stronghold for more than two years, from the southeast, maneuvered into the districts of Intisar, Judaida Mufti, Shaimaa, Salam and Younis Sabaawi, according to the War Media Office.
In the Salam district Rudaw’s Hevidar Ahmed, who is embedded with the Iraqi forces, said that ISIS fighters were putting up tough resistance and were locked in clashes with the militants.
Coalition warplanes flew overhead, surveying ISIS maneuvers in the neighborhoods.
Iraqi forces have made slow gains as they push deeper into the central parts of the city, but an Iraqi commander from the Nineveh police told Rudaw that progress was slow in order to minimize civilian lives – in a city where a reported one million people remain trapped in the fighting.
“It is not slow, but the presence of families and our resolution to save the families is what made our operation slow,” the commander told Rudaw’s Sangar Abdulrahman in the Khazra district.
He explained that, although the liberating of some districts may be slow, they would eventually fall under Iraqi army control.
Abdulrahman reported ongoing clashes in the Samah and Quds districts.
Earlier in the day some local residents complained of insufficient security in Gogjali, the first major Mosul district recaptured by the Iraqi forces on the edge of the city 10 days ago. Residents said the areas were not secure and open to ISIS militants moving around at will.
“At night time Gogjali is empty. ISIS comes or non-ISIS. Whoever comes and whatever they want to do, they can. It is empty. There is no government here. The local government has never come. At night, people come for an hour. We do not know them. They film and then leave,” one resident told Rudaw.
Also Saturday, the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Forces (ICTF) entered the eastern Mosul districts of Arbajiyah, Qadisiyah al-Uoula, Aden, Bakir, Zahabiyah and Karkuli, the Iraqi War Media reported.
See the latest on Rudaw's live map:
Map legend:
Dark green - under Peshmerga control
Light green - encircled/battling by Peshmerga
Red - under Iraqi control
Pink - encircled/battling by Iraqi forces
Yellow - under Hashd al-Shaabi control
Orange - encircled/battling by Hashd al-Shaabi
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