Date: May 17, 2017
Source: The Daily Star
Daesh ‘on brink of defeat’ in west Mosul
Agence France Presse
MOSUL, Iraq: Iraqi forces have recaptured nearly 90 percent of west Mosul from Daesh (ISIS) and militants in the city are on the “brink of total defeat,” officers said Tuesday. Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, spokesman for Iraq’s Joint Operations Command, told a news conference in Baghdad that Daesh now controls just over 10 percent of west Mosul.

Both staff Lt. Gen. Abdel-Wahab al-Saadi, a senior Iraqi special forces commander, and Col. John Dorrian, the spokesman for the U.S.-led international coalition against Daesh, said that the end was near for militants in the city.

“They have two options: die and go to hell or raise the white flag. They have no third option,” Saadi told AFP at his headquarters in Mosul.

“The enemy is completely surrounded,” Dorrian told the news conference in Baghdad. “The enemy is on the brink of total defeat in Mosul.”

The drive to retake Mosul has been supported by a campaign of coalition airstrikes in and around the city.

Dorrian said that coalition strikes have destroyed more than 300 explosives-rigged vehicles in Mosul, as well as over 200 Daesh tunnels and more than a thousand militant fighting positions.

Daesh now controls just a handful of neighborhoods around the Old City, one of the country’s heritage jewels.