Iraq PM: No US combat troops to stay in Iraq after IS

No air strike was called - and the propaganda coup Islamic State would have reaped from the deaths of innocent people was averted.

It said Iraqi forces had already captured a small outlying village called Hsunah and a nearby gas factory. That is down from the Iraq War high of about 170,000 USA troops in 2007. "At some point, you know, the city will be very hard for enemy fighters or leaders to leave". Iraq fully captured east Mosul in late January. Basri was the IS leader for Mosul's Mesherfa and al-Haramat areas, Iraqi News reported.

"We want to maintain that partnership with Afghanistan and we want to ensure that Afghanistan reaches its potential, so that's the objective of the strategy", Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Theresa Whelan told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday. The Iraqi army said on April 30 that it aimed to finish the battle for Mosul before the end of May.

In this Tuesday, May 2, 2017 photo, a humvee of the Iraqi Federal Police drives through an abandoned street in western Mosul, Iraq.

The mosque is a hugely symbolic prize as it is where ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made a rare public appearance in July 2014 and declared the group's self-styled caliphate, after the armed group seized nearly one-third of Iraq.

But just three years after the last United States soldier left, on June 10, 2014, ISIS troops stormed Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, and easily claimed control of the city as numerous US-trained Iraqi forces stationed there took off their uniforms and fled.

Nevertheless, that footprint has since expanded, given the Iraqi forces' need for support.

The US military did not have any estimates of how many troops could be stationed in Iraq. The actual number is likely to be significantly higher.

"We are so happy", said housewife Ruwayda Abdul Rahman Ibrahim, arriving at a muddy muster point on the Syria highway where authorities expect to receive thousands of civilians in the coming days. Their ranks rose to 600,000 this week, the Iraqi Ministry of Migration and Displacement said.

At least 26 members of the army, police, tribal forces and border guard died in the attacks but the jihadists' "state" has looked doomed for months.

The troops launched a major offensive to recapture Mosul, the last major IS stronghold in Iraq, in October.

Col Dorrian said the coalition believed there were "well short of a thousand" militants left in Mosul.

Numerous families are from the Musherfa district of western Mosul, which Iraqi forces entered on Friday.

The army is not only advancing against IS with rockets, mortars and howitzers, they are also deploying drones, jets and helicopters to the frontlines.