URGENT: One-third of eastern Mosul purged of Daesh terrorists: Iraq

Daesh Takfiri terrorists have been driven out of one-third of the eastern side of Mosul, Iraq says as the army forces and their allied fighters are conducting a major operation to liberate the strategic northern city.

“More than a third of this (eastern) side has been liberated by the military forces. This area was restive even before the presence of the terrorist, Daesh,” Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman, Brigadier General Saad Maan, said at the Qayyarah air base near Mosul on Tuesday.

Maan also noted that the districts recaptured in eastern Mosul “are very important and their liberation is a key to the liberation of other areas.”

The Iraqi army, volunteer Shia and Sunni fighters as well as Kurdish Peshmerga forces launched a long-awaited offensive on October 17 to retake Mosul, the last Daesh bastion in the Middle Eastern country.

Government forces are currently attempting to consolidate their gains in Mosul’s eastern neighborhoods.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Maan said that 955 militants had been killed and 108 others captured on the southern frontlines of the Iraqi city since the beginning of the operation.

‘Iraqis in liberated areas need food’

Separately on Tuesday, Iraqi Major Salam al-Obeidi warned that some 700 locals had spilled into the streets of the recently liberated neighborhoods of Zahra and Qadisiya in eastern Mosul to demand food from the military.

The Iraqi troops were sharing their food rations with the civilians, he further pointed out.

“This is a problem for us because the food we have is not enough for them and we’re waiting for more food to be sent from the government,” al-Obeidi said, adding, “Now the Iraqi soldier is giving his food to the civilians.”

Mosul, which is divided by the Tigris River, fell to Daesh in 2014, the year the terror outfit began its campaign of death and destruction in northern and western Iraq.