Iraqi forces said Tuesday they had seized the main government offices in Mosul and its famed museum as they made steady progress in their battle to retake the city's west from jihadists.
The advances, which also included the recapture of three neighbourhoods, were announced on the third day of a renewed offensive against the Islamic State group in west Mosul - the largest remaining urban stronghold in the "caliphate" IS declared in 2014.
Supported by the US-led coalition bombing IS in Iraq and Syria, Iraqi forces began their push against west Mosul on February 19. The advance slowed during several days of bad weather but was renewed on Sunday.
The latest gains have brought government forces closer to Mosul's densely populated Old City, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are believed to still be trapped under jihadist rule. Iraq's Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement that federal police and the elite Rapid Response Division had been able to "liberate" the Nineveh provincial government headquarters.
They also seized control of the Al-Hurriyah bridgehead, it said, in a step towards potentially relinking west Mosul with the city's east, which government forces seized earlier in the offensive.
All the bridges crossing the Tigris in Mosul have been damaged or destroyed, and Iraqi forces would either have to repair them or instal floating bridges to reconnect the two banks of the river dividing the city.
Officers said Tuesday that security forces had also managed to recapture the Mosul museum, where the jihadists destroyed priceless artefacts, releasing a video of their rampage in February 2015.
The video showed militants at the museum knocking statues off their plinths and smashing them to pieces. In another scene, a jackhammer was used to deface a large Assyrian winged bull at an archaeological site in the city.
"Rapid Response entered the museum... there is nothing there," Lieutenant Colonel Abdulamir al-Mohammedawi said.
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