WASHINGTON: Iraq is on track to meet its objective of retaking the city of Mosul from Daesh (ISIS) later this year, should Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi choose to go forward as planned, head of the U.S. military’s Central Command said Tuesday. “It’s the prime minister’s objective to have that done by the end of the year,” Gen. Joseph Votel, who oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East, told a news conference.

“My assessment is that we can meet the ... prime minister’s objectives, if that’s what he chooses to do.”

Two years since Daesh seized wide swaths of northern and western Iraq, Votel said momentum had firmly shifted against the militant group as it loses territory.

Mosul has been the largest urban center under the militants’ control, with a prewar population of nearly 2 million. It was from Mosul’s Grand Mosque in 2014 that Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” spanning regions of Iraq and Syria.

Votel said the battle for Mosul could present a mixed picture for war planners, with Daesh retreating in some areas to reinforce in others.

“ISIL is having to make hard decisions, because they’re being pressured in a variety of ways,” Votel said using an alternative acronym for Daesh.

He pointed to the two-and-a-half month battle by U.S.-backed forces in Syria to take back the town of Manbij from Daesh as an example of how fighting could become protracted.

“We should expect that in some places, perhaps in some parts of Mosul, they will cede that area to us, to the coalition, to the Iraqis. And then in other areas, they will fight harder to hold onto that,” Votel said.

Although Iraqi and U.S. officials have not announced a timetable for moving on the city, a senior Baghdad-based diplomat said last month Abadi wanted to bring forward the start of the Mosul campaign to October.

Human Rights Watch said in a report Tuesday that Iraqi militias are recruiting children from camps for civilians displaced by conflict ahead of the Mosul operation. Citing testimony from witnesses and relatives, HRW said two tribal militias in the Kurdish region recruited children from a camp south of Irbil and drove them away to a town near Mosul.

The group said the recruits are intended to reinforce front-line positions against Daesh in Ninevah, where Mosul is located.