Image copyright AFP Image caption Troops have faced fierce resistance from militants using suicide car bombs and snipers

Iraqi security forces are only days away from completing the operation to recapture Mosul from so-called Islamic State, the army's chief of staff says.

Lt Gen Othman al-Ghanimi told the BBC he hoped the jihadist group would be defeated in the city before the Islamic holy month of Ramadan begins on 26 May.

Recent gains in the north meant the remaining militants were being squeezed into an ever smaller area, he added.

Mosul fell to IS in 2014 and is its last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

Pro-government forces launched a major offensive to retake the city in October with the support of US-led coalition air strikes.

They managed to take full control of the eastern half of Mosul in January and started an assault on the west the following month.

Fewer than 1,000 militants are now besieged in several north-western districts, including the Old City, along with as many as 450,000 civilians.

"The security forces are carrying out a big and effective effort. I say that Daesh (IS) will be finished in days, God willing," Gen Ghanimi told BBC Arabic's Feras Kilani.

"I say that the rest of Mosul will be liberated before the holy month of Ramadan."

A week ago, units from the army's 9th Armoured Division and the interior ministry's Rapid Response Force opened a new front in the north after the advance into the densely-populated Old City from the south and west stalled.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Iraqi security forces launched an assault on the western half of Mosul in February

Progress in the north was initially limited by fierce resistance from militants using suicide car bombs and snipers, but Gen Ghanimi said gains were now being made.

On Wednesday, police commander Lt Gen Raed Jawdat said the Rapid Response Force had stormed the entrances to the Iqtisadiyeen district, south-east of Mushairfa, and killed dozens of militants in heavy clashes.

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The United Nations has said the battle has left more than 8,000 civilians dead or wounded, but that figure only includes people transferred to medical facilities.

Iraq's military does not release casualty figures, but a US general said at the end of March that 774 Iraqi security personnel had been killed and 4,600 wounded.

More than 620,000 civilians have also been displaced by the fighting, among them 414,000 from western Mosul, the Iraqi authorities say.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Shifa'a, 8, went to an IS school

Most have taken refuge in nearby camps and reception centres. Others are staying with relatives and friends.

The UN says another 100,000 to 200,000 could flee the final battle for the Old City.

On Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross expressed concern for civilians inside IS-led districts, saying they were facing "very stark choices" as supplies of food and water ran out.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption More than 414,000 civilians have been displaced by the battle for western Mosul

"This population is not only exposed to the immediate dangers of the conflict itself and being either targeted or hit as collateral damage, but is also facing the effects of just no longer really having much access to the basic essentials that they need to live," deputy Middle East director Patrick Hamilton told Reuters news agency.

"People don't have enough to eat, don't have water," he added. "Babies, elderly and so on of course they are very vulnerable and may already be dying."</s>BAGHDAD—U.S.-backed Iraqi forces were moving to surround Mosul’s Old City on Thursday, a week after launching a fresh push to drive Daesh militants from areas they still hold, according to an Iraqi officer overseeing the operation.

Iraqi special forces Lt. Gen. Sami al-Arathi said battle plans had changed and a northern advance was launched last week after Iraqi forces struggled to push into the Old City from the south.

As Iraqi army and federal police forces push from the north, the country’s special forces are moving toward the Old City through Mosul’s western industrial neighbourhoods.

“The multi-axis advance . . . has presented the enemy with more dilemmas than they can react to,” U.S.-led coalition spokesperson John Dorrian told reporters during a press conference Wednesday. Dorrian said over the past week Iraqi forces retook more than 30 square kilometres of terrain from Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL.</s>The Iraqi Joint Operations Room has announced that ISIS controls only 10% of the city of Mosul now.The Iraqi Army continues its advance in Al-Islah al-Zira'y district in western Mosul.The Iraqi Army managed to destroy an ISIS VBIED during the clashes. Iraqi forces are currently working to evacuate the remaining civilians in the ISIS-held areas. Local sources have reported that there are no ISIS militants in the 17 Tammoz district. However, the Iraqi Army has not yet entered the district.From its side, ISIS claimed that 12 vehicles and a BMP-1 belonging to the Iraqi Army were destroyed in Al-Haramat district with two VBIEDs. Separately, ISIS attacked a group of Iraqi SWAT forces in Al-Yarmouk district with a VBIED.Leader of the Popular Mobilization Unit s(PMU), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, has discussed with commanders of the Iraqi Air Force a possible cooperation in the upcoming operations of the PMU in Iraq. According to unconfirmed reports, the discussion was about the Iraqi Air Force participation in the expected PMU advance on Tal Afar northwest of Mosul.In Baghdad, four civilians were killed and eight wounded in a car bomb attack in Al-Shula district in the northwestern part of the city. Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces killed two suicide bombers and destroyed their vehicle in Amiriya al-Fallujah when they tried to attack a point of the Iraqi army.</s>U.S.-backed Iraqi forces were moving to surround Mosul's Old City on Thursday, a week after launching a fresh push to drive Islamic State militants from areas they still hold, according to an Iraqi officer overseeing the operation.

Iraqi special forces Lt. Gen. Sami al-Arathi said battle plans had changed and a northern advance was launched last week after Iraqi forces struggled to push into the Old City from the south.

As Iraqi army and federal police forces push from the north, the country's special forces are moving toward the Old City through Mosul's western industrial neighborhoods.

"The multi-axis advance ... has presented the enemy with more dilemmas than they can react to," U.S.-led coalition spokesman John Dorrian told reporters during a press conference Wednesday. Dorrian said over the past week Iraqi forces retook more than 30 square kilometers (12 square miles) of terrain from IS.

Hundreds of civilians could be seen fleeing the fighting Thursday.

A Mosul woman was given a cigarette by an Iraqi soldier, another was handed a cane. A handful of wounded civilians were evacuated from the front line, and a woman who appeared to have lost both her legs was rushed away on the hood of an armored vehicle.

The operation to retake Mosul began in October, and the eastern half of the city was retaken earlier this year. The battle for the more densely populated western half, including the Old City, has been slower. Mosul fell to IS nearly three years ago when the militant group blitzed into Iraq from neighboring Syria and took nearly a third of the country under its control. Today a fraction of western Mosul is the last significant urban terrain IS holds in Iraq.

The U.N. estimates some 350,000 people remain trapped in IS-held parts of western Mosul. Clashes over the past week have forced more than 11,000 civilians to flee.

Dorrian said while IS defenses in Mosul are "degraded" each day, it is still impossible to predict how much longer the operation will take.

Associated press writer Maya Alleruzzo in Mosul, Iraq, contributed to this report.</s>Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) celebrate on vehicles taken from Iraqi security forces, at a street in city of Mosul, June 12, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer</s>An Iraqi officer says U.S.-backed Iraqi forces are moving to surround Mosul's Old City a week after launching a fresh push to drive Islamic State militants from areas they still hold.

Iraqi special forces Lt. Gen. Sami al-Arathi said Thursday that battle plans changed and a northern advance was launched last week after Iraqi forces struggled to push into the Old City from the south.

The operation to retake Mosul began nearly seven months ago, and the eastern half of the city was retaken earlier this year. The battle for the more densely populated western half, including the Old City, has been slower.

The U.N. estimates some 350,000 people remain trapped in IS-held Mosul. Clashes over the past week have forced more than 11,000 civilians to flee.</s>"The Iraqi forces will declare victory over the Daesh in the western part of Mosul before the Ramadan month," Qatar's al-Jazeera television quoted Gen. Othman Ghanimi as saying.

Never miss a story again — sign up to our Telegram channel and we'll keep you up to speed!</s>Iraqi government troops are moving closer to surrounding Mosul's Old City, as the U.S.-backed forces battle to liberate the city from Islamic State (IS) extremists, military officials say.

The advance on May 11 is part of a two-pronged drive launched last week from the north of Iraq's second-largest city, the last major IS stronghold in the country.

As the bulk of the force moves in from the north, special forces are moving toward the Old City through west Mosul's industrial districts, Iraqi Lieutenant General Sami al-Arathi said.

"The multi-axis advance ... has presented the enemy with more dilemmas than they can react to," John Dorrian, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, told reporters.

He said Iraqi forces have retaken more than 30 square kilometers of territory from the extremists over the past week.

Iraqi forces backed by U.S. and coalition air support began the battle to liberate Mosul in October.

The eastern half of the city was retaken earlier this year, and troops are facing fierce IS resistance in the more heavily populated west Mosul.

IS fighters captured Mosul in 2014 as they gained wide swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria in battles against government troops.

However, U.S.-led coalition forces have made major gains against the group, both in Mosul and in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the last major IS stronghold in that country.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP</s>The battle to retake Mosul from Islamic State is set to be finished within days according to an Iraqi army chief.

Progress has been painstakingly slow in the war-ravaged city, but US-backed coalition forces were moving to surround Mosul's Old City on Thursday in what is being described as a final push.

The massive offensive to retake the city, involving some 30,000 Iraqi troops, was launched in October and Iraqi leaders originally pledged that Mosul would be retaken before 2017.

But the operation has been delayed by months with ISIS using civilians as a human shield and launching deadly car bomb counter attacks.

Up to 350,000 residents are now trapped in the Old City amid fierce fighting, according to the UN.

Iraqi special forces Lieutenant General Sami al-Arathi said battle plans had changed last week and troops are now entering from the north after Iraqi forces struggled to push into the Old City from the south.

Referring to ISIS by its Arabic name Daesh, he told the BBC: 'The security forces are carrying out a big and effective effort. I say that Daesh will be finished in days, God willing.'

As Iraqi army and federal police forces push from the north, the country's special forces are moving toward the Old City through Mosul's western industrial neighborhoods.

'The multi-axis advance has presented the enemy with more dilemmas than they can react to,' US-led coalition spokesman John Dorrian told reporters during a press conference Wednesday.

Dorrian said over the past week Iraqi forces retook more than 30 square kilometers (12 square miles) of terrain from ISIS.

Hundreds of civilians could be seen fleeing the fighting Thursday.

A Mosul woman was given a cigarette by an Iraqi soldier, another was handed a cane.

A handful of wounded civilians were evacuated from the front line, and a woman who appeared to have lost both her legs was rushed away on the hood of an armored vehicle.

The operation to retake Mosul began in October, and the eastern half of the city was retaken earlier this year.

The battle for the more densely populated western half, including the Old City, has been slower.

Mosul fell to ISIS nearly three years ago when the militant group blitzed into Iraq from neighboring Syria and took nearly a third of the country under its control.

Today a fraction of western Mosul is the last significant urban terrain IS holds in Iraq.

The UN estimates some 350,000 people remain trapped in terrorist-held parts of western Mosul.

Clashes over the past week have forced more than 11,000 civilians to flee.

The northern city is where Iraq-born ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi - who has urged his men to defend Mosul to the death - made his only public appearance in 2014.

The front lines in western Mosul have inched forward for months as ISIS fighters have used a claustrophobic battle space and hundreds of thousands of civilians as human shields to slow Iraqi troops.

On the southern edge of Mosul's west, Iraq's federal police are just a few hundred meters (yards) from Mosul's al-Nuri mosque.

The mosque is a hugely symbolic prize as it is where al-Baghdadi made his rare public appearance in July 2014.

But the building lies inside Mosul's old city where some of the toughest fighting is expected to unfold due to the narrow streets, according to coalition officials.

Iraqi forces now appear to be moving to surround the old city before launching an operation to clear it.

The fight for Mosul's west has been slow and deadly to Iraqi forces and civilians caught in the crossfire.

The battle is believed to have left 774 Iraqi security forces dead and 4,600 wounded.

Iraq's military does not release casualty information for its forces.

The latest assault is aimed at sealing the siege of the Old City, where die-hard jihadists holding huge numbers of civilians hostage are preparing for a bloody last stand.</s>After recent gains in Mosul’s north, Iraqi government forces are squeezing Islamic State (ISIS) into an ever smaller area and hope to liberate the city “within days,” reports said.

Iraqi Lt. Gen. Othman al-Ghanimi told the BBC he hoped ISIS would be defeated in Mosul before the Islamic holy month of Ramadan begins on May 26.

More than 22,000 people have fled Mosul since the U.S.-backed Iraqi forces opened a new front in the northwest of the city on May 4, the United Nations said on May 10, citing Iraqi government figures.

ISIS is now besieged in the northwestern corner of the city, which includes the historic Old City center, the medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque, and its landmark leaning minaret where the terror group’s black flag has been flying since June 2014.

Pro-government forces launched a major offensive to retake the city in October with the support of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes. They managed to take full control of the eastern half of Mosul in January and started an assault on the west the following month.

According to a Reuters report, ISIS jihadists are shooting people who try to escape, although some men have been allowed to leave in exchange for taking jihadists’ families with them, said 40-year-old Umm Abdul Rahman, who fled the Musherfa district on May 9.

“There is no water, no food. The bombardment is continuous,” she said, and the jihadists were setting civilian cars and trucks on fire to create smokescreens.

People are surviving on ground wheat boiled in water, 31-year-old Qatra al-Nada Abdullah said, because ISIS fighters were keeping any food or water that is left for themselves.

Defeat in Mosul would leave ISIS without a major stronghold in Iraq. It still controls large swathes of Syria and some territory in Iraq near the Syrian border.

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The Iraqi army's chief of staff, Lt Gen Othman al-Ghanmi, states that his security forces are only days away from completing the operation to recapture Mosul from ISIL.