MOSUL, Iraq, April 6 (Xinhua) -- Two Iraqi pilots were killed on Thursday when their helicopter was shot down in the western side of Mosul while fighting Islamic State (IS) militants, the Iraqi army said.
The helicopter was providing air support to the Iraqi federal police forces in the battles near the old city center when enemy fire shot it down, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement.
The federal police and interior ministry special forces, known as Rapid Response, have been fighting in heavy clashes on the southern and western front lines at the edge of the old city center, in an attempt to surround the extremist militants in the areas around historical al-Nuri Mosque in the middle of the IS-held old city center in the western side of Mosul, locally known as the right bank of Tigris River.
Mosul, 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.
