Iraqi forces: 6 Mosul districts seized from IS

An officer in the elite Counter Terrorism Service said, CTS troops launched a major operation against the militants, who are now almost surrounded in their last major urban redoubt in Iraq. CTS special forces took over the neighborhoods of Malayeen, Samah, Khadra, Karkukli, Quds and Karama, the statement said, inflicting heavy losses on the militant fighters and raising the Iraqi flag over buildings. One special forces officer told Reuters , the CTS units may try to push all the way to the Tigris river, which runs through the center of Mosul. Volleys of automatic rifle fire, possibly from the militants, were heard. 

A senior officer in the village said Iraqi troops had also taken two thirds of another Mosul district, Intisar, in the same eastern section of the city. Islamic State fighters “are trying to get away”, Lieutenant-General Qassem Jassim Nazzal told Reuters. In a sign of the fierce resistance which soldiers have encountered since entering the city on Monday, Nazzal said they blew up six bomb-laden cars, killed two suicide bombers, and killed 30 other people. In the village of Ali Rash, retaken by Iraqi forces sweeping toward Mosul from the south and the east, the bloated and blackened bodies of three Islamic State fighters, dressed in khaki trousers and military boots, were left out in the open.