MOSUL, Iraq, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi forces battling Islamic State (IS) militants on Sunday recaptured a new area after defeating the extremist militants in the old city in the western side of Mosul, the Iraqi military said.
"The Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) forces freed Makkawi area in the central part of the old city in the right bank (western side of Tigris River) of Mosul and raised the Iraqi flag over some of its buildings," Abdul-Amir Yarallah from the Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.
The CTS, army, federal police and the Rapid Response forces have been fighting inside the old city, but the troops are making slow progress due to the stiff resistance of IS militants and a large number of roadside bombs and booby-trapped buildings, in addition to IS snipers taking positions in the buildings and narrow alleys of heavily-populated neighborhoods.
According to recent UN reports, some 100,000 civilians are still trapped in the IS-held areas in the old city and the adjacent al-Shifaa neighborhood, the last neighborhood which remained outside the major IS redoubt of the old city center.
The CTS commandos on Thursday drove the IS militants out of al-Nuri mosque and its leaning al-Hadbaa minaret after days of heavy clashes.
On June 21, the IS blew up al-Nuri mosque, as Iraqi forces were pushing closer to the mosque and the surrounding area amid fierce house-to-house battles in some nearby alleys.
The mosque was built in 1172 AD along with its famous leaning minaret, which gave the city its nickname "al-Hadbaa" or "the hunchback."
It was where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the cross-border "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria in his sole public appearance in July 2014.
Mosul, 400 km north of Iraq's capital 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.
