Endgame in Mosul: Iraqi forces storm the Islamic State-held Old City
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Iraqi Federal Police celebrate
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An Iraqi soldier wears a gas mask
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Civilians are evacuated
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A sniper team member takes aim
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An Iraqi man comforts a relative
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An Iraqi fighter fires against Islamic State militants
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A tank fires at Islamic State militants
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Civilians flee the Old City
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An Iraqi walks the streets
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Smoke billows over the Old City
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Men are detained
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After a victory parade dress rehersal
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A soldier looks at his pet dove
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A bomb explodes behind the al-Nuri mosque complex
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An Iraqi Federal Police member gestures on the frontline
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An Iraqi Federal Police member runs for cover
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An Iraqi Federal Police member on the frontline
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The destroyed al-Nuri mosque
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A member of the Iraqi Federal police rests
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Iraqi forces walk past charred vehicles
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A suspect is questioned
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View from a vehicle windshield
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Cousins comfort each other
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Iraqis flee the Old City
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An injured Iraqi reacts
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An Iraqi paramedic calms a child
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An Iraqi Federal Police soldier on the frontline
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An Iraqi woman tries to calm a civilian
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On the frontline
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A wounded Iraqi boy receives treatment
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A banknote with Mosul’s iconic leaning minaret
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Before and after photo of Mosul’s Al-Hadba minaret
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Iraqis queue to receive food ration
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Debris in the Old City
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Iraqi anti-terrorism forces in the Old City
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Iraqis flee the Old City
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A U.S. soldier advises Iraqi forces in Mosul
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Death toll rises in Aleppo – 50,000 flee in four days
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An Iraqi carries a wounded man
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Civilians flee the Old City
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An Iraqi boy flees the Old City
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U.S. soldiers advising Iraqi forces are seen in Mosul
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A Iraqi forces member patrols
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Iraqi army members drop leaflets
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Iraqi Army members pose with an Islamic State flag
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An Iraqi Army helicopter launches decoy flares
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An Iraqi soldier smokes a cigarette
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Iraqi soldiers rest inside a house
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A displaced Iraqi resident, carrying his child, flees fighting
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Displaced Iraqi residents flee
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Iraqi soldiers give water to a dehydrated child
Iraqi authorities will imminently announce a final victory in the battle to recapture Mosul from the Islamic State group, a US general said Saturday.
“An announcement is imminent,” Brigadier General Robert Sofge told AFP by phone from Baghdad.
“I don’t want to speculate if it’s today or tomorrow but I think it’s going to be very soon,” he added.
The jihadists that remain in Mosul are fighting to the death in a tiny area of just two blocks of the Old City next to the Tigris River, Sofge said, and those that remain are “desperate.”
Some are trying to blend in with fleeing civilians by shaving their beards and changing their clothes, others are playing dead then detonating explosive vests as Iraqi security forces come close. Women IS fighters have blown themselves up amid throngs of displaced civilians.
“They are doing as much damage as they can during these final moves,” Sofge said.
The battle for Mosul first began on October 16, 2016 and the fight has seemed to grow exponentially tougher as US-backed Iraqi security forces closed in on the center of the city.
Slowing the advance toward the final holdouts, IS have placed countless booby traps and bombs in practically every structure they occupied.
“The enemy has strung IEDs all over the place, in every place, in every closet, in one case under a crib,” Sofge said.
A final victory in Mosul would mark an epic milestone for the Iraqi security forces, who had crumbled in the face of an IS onslaught across Iraq in 2014. (READ MORE from AFP)
See RELATED STORY by Ash Gallagher for Yahoo News
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