Eastern Mosul recaptured from ISIL

"The armed forces succeeded in liberating the left bank of the city of Mosul completely, after inflicting heavy losses in lives and equipment on the enemy," the Iraqi Defense Ministry said in a statement on its website on Monday.

The ministry said that security forces were now clearing the area from explosives.

The Iraqi forces will now gear up to recapture the western side of Mosul to wrest full control over the strategic city.

On October 17, 2017, Iraqi forces launched a massive operation to retake Mosul from Daesh terrorists, who captured the city in 2014.

Daesh expels residents along Tigris River

Meanwhile, residents said on Monday that Daesh had expelled civilians from their homes along the Tigris River on Mosul's west bank as they fear the Iraqi Army’s advance to the western side of the city.

"The group forced us to leave our homes... without allowing us to take our belongings," a resident of Al-Maidan, a neighborhood on Mosul’s militant-held west bank, told AFP.

"It deployed gun positions and posted snipers on roofs and at windows," the resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The full liberation of Mosul will mark another big victory for the Iraqi forces who managed to recapture the central city of Fallujah from Daesh in June 2016.

The Iraqi military also made a significant victory in December 2015, when it took control of the central city of Ramadi, Anbar’s provincial capital.

KD