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SOUTH OF MOSUL US-backed Iraqi forces closing in on the Islamic State-held western half of Mosul prepared on Tuesday to storm the airport and a nearby military base on its southern outskirts to create a bridgehead for a thrust into the city.
Since ousting IS from eastern Mosul last month, Iraqi forces have advanced in sparsely populated outlying areas but fighting will intensify as they near the teeming inner city of western Mosul and the risk to roughly 750,000 civilians there will rise.
The US military commander in Iraq has said he believes US-backed forces will retake both of IS's urban bastions - Mosul and Raqqa in neighbouring Syria - within the next six months, which would end the jihadists' ambitions to territorial rule three years after they declared a"caliphate".
Iraqi federal police and elite interior ministry units known as Rapid Response have made rapid progress towards western Mosul in a sweep upwards through stony desert terrain from the south since launching the offensive's second phase on Sunday. Iraqi forces reached the"vicinity" of Mosul's international airport on Monday, the military said. (REUTERS)
