BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – The number of car bomb attacks by terrorists in the Iraqi city of Mosul has fallen sharply, signifying the weakening of the group, a top Iraqi commander says.
"Car bombs have been a key component” of Daesh terrorists since the operation to liberate Mosul started on October 17, Major General Maan al-Saadi of the elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) said.
"At the beginning, they launched many car bombs, now much fewer. There are one, two or three a day, never more than 10. In the first phase, they used more than 50 a day,” he added.
In many cases during the ongoing Mosul operation, Daesh terrorists ran their explosives-laden vehicles into Iraqi forces.
Iraqi government forces have managed to regain control over a number of neighborhoods in east Mosul as they try to flush Daesh terrorists out of the area.
The Iraqi Federal Police announced in a statement that security personnel had wrested full control of Palestine neighborhood in the eastern part of the city, located some 400 kilometers north of the capital Baghdad, killing 35 Daesh terrorists in the process.
On Sunday, Iraqi forces pushing ahead in east Mosul reached the Tigris River in the center of the city for the first time.
Iraqi army soldiers, supported by fighters from the allied Hashd al-Sha’abi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, launched a joint operation on October 17 to retake Mosul from Daesh terrorists.
According to figures released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a total of 137,880 people, or 22,980 families, have been displaced from Mosul and neighboring areas ever since the start of the operation.
The west bank of Mosul remains under full Daesh control. In the next phase of the operation, Iraqi forces, assisted by their allied forces, plan to move into the streets of west Mosul.
The full liberation of east Mosul would take place in a matter of days, a CTS commander said.