Mosul: A city being liberated
The northern Iraqi city of Mosul captured by Islamic State in 2014 is close to being totally liberated. 100 days of fighting for Mosul between the United States backed Iraqi forces and the Jihadis has seen them being pushed back.
Government controlled buildings and the famous Mosul Museum once occupied have all been cleared out.
600,000 civilians are thought to remain in areas still controlled by Islamic State. The Jihadi group is thought to have no more than 2,500 fighters left in the city.
Islamic State fighters trapped
A US official Brett McGurk supervising the offensive against Islamic State said Iraqi forces had now cut off the main road out of Mosul. McGurk said the IS fighters had no escape route now and were cut off from supplies and would die where they were.
Heavy fighting between government forces and remnants of Islamic State has continued over the weekend.
To back up the consensus that the Jihadis are losing Iraqi Brigadier Yahya Rasool said in his opinion Daesh forces were weakening.
Islamic State rule and atrocities
When IS forces rolled into Iraq's second city of Mosul life at first seemed ok and the Jihadis offered hope. At least it seemed that way for many Mosul inhabitants but the honeymoon did not last long.
IS instigated a rule of terror and brutality that the hapless population of Mosul had to endure.
Women were forced to cover up, men had to grow beards, crime was harshly dealt with and the city lived in an atmosphere of fear. Where ever Islamic State held sway this was the daily life of 10 million people under its rule.
Daesh in the territory they controlled killed or drove out all those it did not consider as Muslims and regarded as infidels.
Shia Muslims, Christians and Yazidis were the main victims of the fanatics wrath and also Daesh executed their victims by beheading on social media.
The beginning of the end for Islamic State?
Islamic State's success took the world by surprise in a blitzkrieg-like offensive recalling the advances made by the Germans and Japanese.
Like the Germans and Japanese of World War II, their territorial success was not to last when Allied and Russian forces attacked them from the air. Anti - Daesh forces rallied and began to push back IS so they lost ground, men and material.
Islamic State will be defeated but whether that will be the end or they will morph into something else time will tell.
