Iraqi forces backed by helicopter strikes engaged in heavy fighting with jihadists on the outskirts of the Old City on Sunday as they pressed an offensive to recapture west Mosul. The elite Rapid Response Force and Iraqi federal police attacked the ISIS with rifles, machineguns, mortar rounds and rockets a month after the west Mosul operation began.
The joint forces were around 100 metres south of Mosul’s Iron Bridge, which has been destroyed along with other bridges that span the Tigris River that linked the city’s eastern and western sides.
Helicopters circled overhead harrying ISIS with barrages of bullets and rocket fire in strikes aided by weather that was clearer than it had
been in recent days, correspondents said.
“The aim of the battle is to go past Al-Hadidi (Iron) Bridge northwards,” Brigadier General Abbas al-Juburi of the Rapid Response units told AFP.