MOSUL: Iraqi forces on Sunday retook two areas from the militant Islamic State group in Mosul, sealing their control of the east bank three months into an offensive to reclaim the city.

They recaptured “Al-Milayeen neighbourhood and Al-Binaa al-Jahiz area and raised the Iraqi flag over the buildings”, the military said in a statement.

“These are the last neighbourhoods of the centre of the city (on) the left bank,” the statement said, referring to eastern Mosul.

It also said that federal forces had retaken control of the road linking Mosul, Iraq’s second city, to Dohuk, a provincial capital in the west of the autonomous region of Kurdistan.

The latest progress effectively seals the Iraqi forces’ control over the east bank, with only the neighbourhood of Rashidiyah, on Mosul’s northern edge, left to retake.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and top commanders in the Counter-Terrorism Service, which has spearheaded operations inside Mosul, had already declared the city’s east “liberated” on Wednesday.

Published in Dawn January 23rd, 2017