Iraqi troops entered Mosul from the north for the first time on Friday, part of a new phase in the battle for the city that also saw elite forces bridge a river under cover of darkness in an unprecedented night raid.
The operations were part of a major new push launched last week to seize ground in the city, after progress in the nearly three-month-old operation had stalled for weeks because of a need to slow the advance to protect civilians.
Troops would soon “cut the head of the snake” and drive the ultra-hard-line group from its largest urban stronghold, Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi said on Friday.
But the militants, who are thought to number several thousand in Mosul, continue to put up fierce resistance using suicide car bombs and snipers.
They carried out more attacks against security forces some 200 km south of Mosul on Friday, killing at least four soldiers, and are expected to pose a guerrilla threat to Iraq and Syria, and to plot attacks on the West, even if their caliphate falls.
A spokesman for Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), which has taken the lead in much of the assault on the city, said troops had taken territory in an overnight raid across a Tigris River tributary in east Mosul.
“We used special equipment and had the element of surprise — the enemy did not expect us to mount a night offensive because all previous offensives were during the day,” Sabah Al-Numan told Reuters.
Iraqi Army units later breached the city from the north for the first time since the offensive began on Oct. 17, entering the residential Al-Hadba apartments complex, officers at a nearby command post told Reuters. It was not immediately clear how much of the area they controlled amid resistance from Daesh.
Iraqi forces have so far recaptured more than half of eastern Mosul, but they have yet to cross the Tigris to face insurgents who are still firmly in control of the western half of the city.
More than 100,000 civilians have fled, but 1.5 million people have stayed behind in the city, which commanders say forced the government troops to slow their advance.
The new phase in the battle has put US troops in a more visible role than at any point since they withdrew from the country in 2011. President Barack Obama, who pulled all US forces out of the country, has sent thousands back as advisers since Islamic State swept through the north in 2014.
In the latest phase of the operation, US forces deploying more extensively in support of the Iraqi Army, federal police and CTS can now be seen very close to the front lines.
US forces located south of Mosul fired HIMARS vehicle-mounted rockets at Daesh targets in a northern district on Friday.
“The fight against terrorism is in its final round. Our forces ... will cut off the head of the snake and clear all of Mosul soon, with God’s help,” Abadi said.
Daesh has meanwhile launched attacks elsewhere in the country in what could be a taste of the tactics it will resort to once it loses Mosul.
Militants attacked an Iraqi army outpost and a police station near the city of Tikrit on Friday, killing at least four soldiers and wounding 12 others, military and police sources said.
The militants used a car bomb and two suicide attackers in their assault shortly after midnight on the army outpost in the town of Al-Dour on Tikrit’s outskirts, killing two officers and two soldiers, the sources said.
Gunmen separately attacked the police station a short distance away and set fire to the building before fleeing the area. There were no casualties from that attack, the sources said.

Source: Arab News