Iraqi commander vows to complete ops in May

A top Iraqi commander expects to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul in May despite resistance from militants in the densely populated Old City district.

The battle should be completed "in a maximum of three weeks", the Iraqi army's chief of staff, Lieutenant General Othman al-Ghanmi, was quoted as saying by state-run newspaper al-Sabah yesterday.

A US-led international coalition is providing air and ground support for the offensive in Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, which fell to hardline Sunni Muslim fighters in June 2014.

Islamic State has lost most of the city's districts since the offensive began in October and is now surrounded in the northwestern districts, including the historic Old City centre.

The United Nation believes that up to half a million people remain in the area still controlled by the militants in Mosul, 400,000 of which are in the Old City with little food and water supply and no access to hospitals.

The militants have dug in between the civilians, often launching deadly counter-attacks to repel forces closing in on the Old City's Grand al-Nuri Mosque.

In Syria, US-backed militias yesterday said they had made a big advance in Tabqa, a strategically vital town controlling Syria's largest dam, in their campaign to drive Islamic State from its stronghold of Raqqa, 40km downstream.

In a statement it circulated on social messaging sites, the SDF), a group of Kurdish and Arab militias, said it had captured six more districts of Tabqa and distributed a map showing that Islamic State now controlled only the northern part of the town, next to the dam.