Iraqi forces battling Islamic State (IS) militants on Friday seized new areas at the ninth day of a new push that initiated new fronts in the northwestern edge of IS stronghold in the western side of Mosul, the Iraqi military said.   The special forces of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) took control of the first part of Islah al-Ziraie neighborhood after defeating IS militants in heavy street-to-street clashes during the past 24 hours, the Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.   During the day, the troops crossed the main road that divides the Islah al-Ziraie neighborhood to al-Oula in the south and al-Thania in the north and started new push into the Islah al-Ziraie al-Thania or the second, it said.   On Thursday, the CTS Commander Abdul Ghani al-Asadi told reporters that the CTS troops made a significant progress in Islah al-Ziraie neighborhood, located at the edge of several adjacent IS-held neighborhoods.   “The troops recaptured large part of Islah al-Ziraie (al-Oula) neighborhood, and we could have recaptured the whole neighborhoods, but the presence of civilians forced us to stop the progress, to make it safe for the families to leave their homes in the battlefield,” Asadi said.   Meanwhile, the elite forces of the federal police, known as Rapid Response, backed by the army’s armored and infantry forces cleared Harmat neighborhood from IS militants and continued house-to-house battles as they push into the adjacent neighborhoods of Iqtisadiyn and 17th July, Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Yarallah, from the Joint Operations Command (JOC), said in a separate statement.   On May 4, the Iraqi army and Rapid Response special forces pushed on the new front from the northwestern edge of Mosul toward the areas of Mushairfah, Kanisah and Harmat in the northern part of the western side of the city.   The new push was aimed at helping the special forces of the CTS and the interior ministry federal police, who are making slow progress in the southern part of Mosul’s western side because of the stiff resistance of the militants in the densely-populated areas of the old city center, where roughly 400,000 residents are believed to still be trapped under IS rule.   The troops are now pushing to seize the remaining neighborhoods in north and northwest of the city center to tighten noose around the IS redoubt in the city center in the western side of Mosul, including the old areas around the historical al-Nuri Mosque in the middle of Mosul’s old city center.   Late in January, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, declared the liberation of Mosul’s eastern side, or the left bank of Tigris, after over 100 days of fighting IS militants.   On February 19, Abadi announced the start of an offensive to drive extremist militants out of the western side of Mosul, locally known as the right bank of the Tigris River, which bisects the city.   However, the western part of Mosul, with its narrow streets and heavily populated neighborhoods, appears to be a bigger challenge to the Iraqi forces.   Mosul, 400 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq’s northern and western regions.

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AP Photo/ Khalid Mohammed