MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi special forces battled Daesh militants inside the Mosul University campus on Saturday in a second day of fierce clashes in the complex.
“There are still clashes. We entered the university and cleared the technical institute, dentistry and antiquities departments,” Lieutenant General Abdelwahab Al-Saadi of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) told a Reuters reporter in the complex.
“In the coming hours it will be liberated completely,” he said.
CTS troops had gathered in the university canteen. As they unfurled a map of the area, a suspected Daesh drone flew overhead and they shot at it.
Recapturing the university would be a crucial strategic gain and allow Iraqi forces to advance quicker towards the Tigris river, from where they will be able to launch attacks on the city’s west, still all under Daesh control, military officers say.
The United Nations says the militants seized nuclear materials used for scientific research from the university when they overran Mosul and vast areas of northern Iraq and eastern Syria in 2014.
Residents of the Iraqi city of Mosul said up to 30 civilians died in an air strike on a district held by Daesh this week.
Locals said they saw at least three missiles hit the western Mosul Al-Jadida area on Thursday, in a raid that appeared to target the house of senior militant Harbi Abdel Qader.
He was not in the building at the time, but several members of his family died, one resident said late on Friday.
Reuters could not verify the accounts independently.
The witnesses said it was not immediately clear if the attack was carried out by the US-led coalition fighting Daesh, or by Iraqi forces that have been making advances against the militants in the city.
Areas of Mosul west of the river Tigris, which bisects the city from north to south, are still controlled by the militant group.
Almost all of the east has been recaptured by US-backed Iraqi forces who are fighting to drive the militants out of the city. — Reuters
