MOSUL: Special forces have recaptured more of Mosul’s historic heart as they press the final stages of an assault to drive Daesh from Iraq’s second city, the military said Sunday.
More than eight months since the country’s forces launched an operation to retake Mosul, Daesh has gone from fully controlling the city to holding a few neighborhoods on its western side.
Counter-terrorism forces liberated the Makawi area of the Old City, the joint operations command announced on Sunday, in a further blow at the heart of the terrorists’ cross-border “caliphate.”
Iraqi forces have been closing in on the Old City for months, but its narrow streets and closely spaced buildings combined with a large civilian population made for an extremely difficult fight.
Security forces recaptured a series of nearby districts, cornering the terrorists, before launching an assault inside the Old City on June 18.
They have since made significant progress.
On Saturday, officers announced the recapture of a hospital and its surroundings north of the Old City, removing a nearby but unconnected pocket of Daesh resistance.
Interior Ministry forces recaptured the Ibn Sina hospital along with other medical facilities including a blood bank and a clinic, Staff Lt. Gen. Abdulamir Yarallah said in a statement.
Daesh has occupied several of Mosul’s hospitals during the battle for the city.
Some security personnel have complained that restrictions on using heavy weapons against hospitals, intended to protect the facilities, have made operations riskier and more time-consuming.
Lt. Gen. Raed Shakir Jawdat, federal police chief, said the area around the hospital, Al-Shifaa, had been completely retaken, limiting Daesh’s presence in Mosul to the Old City.
“Our forces are advancing from three sides and are pursuing the terrorist groups in the few remaining areas of the Old City,” Jawdat said in a statement.
On Thursday, Iraqi forces retook the remains of the Grand Mosque of Al-Nuri in their greatest symbolic victory since the battle began.
Daesh chief Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi gave a triumphal sermon at the mosque after the terrorists captured Mosul in 2014, calling on Muslims to obey him.
The mosque thus became a symbol of Baghdadi’s rule and Daesh’s self-declared cross-border “caliphate.”
Daesh made sure that the Al-Nuri mosque was not captured intact, blowing it up along with its famed leaning minaret — known affectionately as “Al-Hadba” (The Hunchback) — as Iraqi forces closed in.
Daesh claimed on its Amaq propaganda agency that the site was hit in a US airstrike, but the US-led coalition said it was the terrorists who had “destroyed one of Mosul and Iraq’s great treasures.”
Even though it lies in ruins, the mosque’s recapture has provided a boost to Iraq’s forces and its government. Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi declared that the terrorists’ “caliphate” was coming to an end.
The following day, a senior Iraqi commander said victory in Mosul would be declared within the “next few days.”
Daesh overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led coalition air strikes have since regained much of the territory they lost.
The recapture of Mosul will not however mark the end of the war against Daesh.
The terrorist group still holds territories in both Iraq and Syria, where it has been able to carry out attacks in government-held areas.
Daesh terrorists and “lone wolf” attackers inspired by the group’s ideology have also carried out multiple operations overseas.
Iraq gains ground in Mosul’s Old City as it presses assault on Daesh
Iraq gains ground in Mosul’s Old City as it presses assault on Daesh
Saad Hariri pledges to contest May election
- Beirut rally draws large crowds on anniversary of his father’s assassination
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced on Saturday that his movement, which represents the majority of Lebanon’s Sunni community, would take part in upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for May.
The Future Movement had suspended its political activities in 2022.
Hariri was addressing a large gathering of Future Movement supporters as Lebanon marked the 21st anniversary of the assassination of his father and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, at Martyrs’ Square in front of his tomb.
He said his movement remained committed to the approach of “moderation.”
A minute’s silence was observed by the crowd in Martyrs’ Square at the exact time when, in 2005, a suicide truck carrying about 1,000 kg of explosives detonated along Beirut’s seaside road as Rafik Hariri’s motorcade passed, killing him along with 21 others, including members of his security guards and civilians, and injuring 200 people.
Four members of Hezbollah were accused of carrying out the assassination and were tried in absentia by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
The crowd waved Lebanese flags and banners of the Future Movement as they awaited Saad Hariri, who had returned to Beirut from the UAE, where he resides, specifically to commemorate the anniversary, as has been an annual tradition.
Hariri said that “after 21 years, the supporters of Hariri’s approach are still many,” denouncing the “rumors and intimidation” directed at him.
He added: “Moderation is not hesitation … and patience is not weakness. Rafik Hariri’s project is not a dream that will fade. He was the model of a statesman who believed, until martyrdom, that ‘no one is greater than their country.’ The proof is his enduring place in the minds, hearts and consciences of the Lebanese people.”
Hariri said he chose to withdraw from political life after “it became required that we cover up failure and compromise the state, so we said no and chose to step aside — because politics at the expense of the country’s dignity and the project of the state has no meaning.”
He said: “The Lebanese are weary, and after years of wars, divisions, alignments and armed bastions, they deserve a normal country with one constitution, one army, and one legitimate authority over weapons — because Lebanon is one and will remain one. Notions of division have collapsed in the face of reality, history and geography, and the illusions of annexation and hegemony have fallen with those who pursued them, who ultimately fled.”
Hariri said the Future Movement’s project is “One Lebanon, Lebanon first — a Lebanon that will neither slide back into sectarian strife or internal fighting, nor be allowed to do so.”
He added that the Taif Agreement is “the solution and must be implemented in full,” arguing that “political factions have treated it selectively by demanding only what suits them — leaving the agreement unfulfilled and the country’s crises unresolved.”
He said: “When we call for the full implementation of the Taif Agreement, we mean: weapons exclusively in the hands of the state, administrative decentralization, the abolition of political sectarianism, the establishment of a senate and full implementation of the truce agreement. All of this must be implemented — fully and immediately — so we can overcome our chronic problems and crises together.
“Harirism will continue to support any Arab rapprochement, and reject any Arab discord. Those who seek to sow discord between the Gulf and Arab countries will harm only themselves and their reputation.
“We want to maintain the best possible relations with all Arab countries, starting with our closest neighbor, Syria — the new Syria, the free Syria that has rid itself of the criminal and tyrannical regime that devastated it and Lebanon, and spread its poison in the Arab world.”
Hariri said he saluted “the efforts of unification, stabilization and reconstruction led by Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa.”
When asked about the Future Movement’s participation in parliamentary elections following his withdrawal from politics, he said: “Tell me when parliamentary elections will be held, and I will tell you what the Future Movement will do. I promise you that, when the elections take place, they will hear our voices, and they will count our votes.”
The US Embassy in Lebanon shared a post announcing that Ambassador Michel Issa laid a wreath at the grave of Rafik Hariri.
Hariri’s legacy “to forge peace and prosperity continues to resonate years later with renewed significance,” the embassy said.
