Iraqi prime minister arrives in Mosul to celebrate ‘big victory’

MOSUL, Iraq — Iraq’s state TV said Sunday the country’s prime minister was visiting Mosul to declare victory over Islamic State in the more than eight-month-old operation to drive the group from the city.

Haider al-Abadi was quoted as saying he “congratulates the fighters and the people on the big victory” in the key city.

Dressed in a black uniform of a type worn by Iraqi special forces, al-Abadi was shown on state TV on Sunday descending from a military plane and being greeted by senior security forces commanders.

Backed by US-led coalition forces, Iraq launched the operation to retake Mosul in October. Iraqi media reported Sunday that government forces had driven IS from all areas of the city, and are “chasing” them down in some of those areas.

Islamic State captured Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in a matter of days in the summer of 2014.

According to the reports, heavy fighting was still underway in the city, even as Iraqi troops celebrated the fall of their last strongholds in Mosul’s Old City.

Lt. Gen. Jassim Nizal of the army’s 9th Division said Sunday his forces have achieved “victory” in the sector allotted to them, after a similar announcement by the militarized Federal Police. Iraqi special forces were still fighting a few hundred meters away in the city center.

Nizal’s soldiers danced to patriotic music atop tanks even as airstrikes sent plumes of smoke into the air nearby.

IS now controls less than a square kilometer of territory in the Old City, but is using human shields, suicide bombers and snipers in a fight to the death.