Iraq Declares Victory Over IS In Mosul

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has arrived in Mosul to declare victory over IS, after an eight-month operation to drive the militants out.

State TV quoted Mr al-Abadi as saying he "congratulates the fighters and the people on the big victory".

It's been reported that fighting is continuing in a small sector of the key city, however.

Lieutenant General Jassim Nizal, of the Iraqi army's 9th Division, said his forces had achieved "victory" in their sector, after a similar announcement by the militarised Federal Police.

The militants captured Iraq's second largest city in a matter of days in the summer of 2014. Lt Gen Nizal acknowledged that many of his men were among those who fled the city at that time in a humiliating defeat for the country's armed forces. He said:

"Some things happened here, that's true. But we have come back."

His soldiers danced to patriotic music on tanks, even as air strikes sent plumes of smoke into the air nearby.

Iraq launched the operation to retake Mosul in October.

Much of Mosul's Old City and surrounding areas have been devastated by months of gruelling urban combat. On Sunday a line of tired civilians filed out of the Old City on foot, past destroyed apartment blocks lining the cratered roads.

The loss of the city marks a major defeat for IS, which has suffered a series of major setbacks over the past year.

US-backed Syrian forces have pushed into the group's de facto capital, the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, but a final victory there could be months away, and the extremists still hold several smaller towns and villages across Iraq and Syria.

An open-ended ceasefire in southern Syria brokered by the United States and Russia has come into effect, however.

The ceasefire, announced after a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hamburg last week, is the first initiative by the Trump administration in collaboration with Russia to bring some stability to the war-torn nation.