Mosul — Iraqi security forces advanced Monday toward a compound of militant-held government buildings and a bridgehead, on the second day of a renewed push in west Mosul, officers said.
The operation to retake west Mosul, the largest urban population center still in the hands of the Daesh group, began on Feb. 19, but had slowed amid several days of bad weather until a renewed drive began on Sunday.
The interior ministry’s elite Rapid Response forces “are advancing in the Al-Dawasa and Al-Dindan areas to liberate the government buildings and secure a route for families to leave,” Lieutenant Colonel Abdulamir Mohammedawi told AFP.
The fighting in west Mosul has sparked an exodus from that side of the city, pushing more than 45,000 people to flee, according to the International Organization for Migration.
The Nineveh provincial government buildings are close to Al-Hurriyah Bridge, but “we have not yet reached the bridge, we are meters (yards) from it,” Mohammedawi said.
Mosul is divided by the Tigris River, and while the series of bridges crossing it have either been damaged or destroyed, they would provide a link between the Iraqi government-held east and Daesh-held west Mosul if they can be repaired or otherwise bridged.
Iraqi forces recaptured the western side of the fourth bridge, which is south of Al-Hurriyah, at the end of last month.
The Al-Hurriyah bridge is the second to be secured by the Iraqi forces in the city, after securing one located further south, in the offensive that started on the western part of Mosul on Feb. 19.
“We control the western end of the bridge,” said a senior media officer with Rapid Response, the elite unit of the interior ministry leading the charge through the districts alongside the Tigris river.
All of Mosul’s five bridges over the Tigris have been destroyed but their capture and repair would help the offensive against the militants, who have controlled the northern Iraqi city since 2014.
Iraqi forces captured the eastern side of Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris on Feb. 19.
