Live Update 
From the Liveblog of
Monday, February 20, 2017
From the Liveblog of
Monday, February 20, 2017
2,000 IS fighters defending west Mosul — US
An estimated 2,000 IS fighters are left in west Mosul to defend their bastion against a massive offensive by the Iraqi security forces, a senior US intelligence official says.
“There’s about 2,000 remaining,” the official tells reporters on condition of anonymity during a trip to Iraq by the new Pentagon chief, Jim Mattis.
The estimate which the US-led coalition supporting Iraqi forces gave before the October 17 launch of a huge operation on Mosul was that the city was defended by 5,000 to 7,000 jihadists.
The coalition has not provided figures but it has said that the four-month-old campaign on Mosul had inflicted heavy casualties on IS.
— AFP
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