Politics
08:49, 01-Jul-2017
The Heat: ISIL under attack and the battle for Mosul and Raqqa
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By CGTN's The Heat
After eight-months of brutal house-to-house combat in Mosul, Iraqi troops have captured the ruins of the 850-year-old Grand al-Nuri Mosque.
It was on this site that ISIL declared its self-styled caliphate three years ago. After retaking the mosque, an Iraqi military spokesman declared: “Their fictitious state has fallen.”
Is ISIL on the verge of defeat — in the city where its grand ambitions began? After retaking Mosul’s Grand Mosque, Iraq’s prime minister issued orders to “bring the battle to its conclusion.”
CGTN talked to Ahmed Rushdi, a political analyst and foreign policy adviser to the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament and the director of the House of Iraqi Expertise Foundation.
When asked whether Iraq is going to be able to hold the city, Rushdi said that "it is one of these glorious days for Iraq that Daesh [ISIL] vanished from Mosul, which means that stronghold of Daesh is in the hand of Iraq again."
"That means all the sacrifices that were made for two years are actually paid off, with Mosul being completely liberated. It is the beginning of the liberation of the all territory of Iraq, this is certain," he explained.
But he also pointed out that most importantly, there is "supposed to be a plan ... in the central government and the local government, with the help of the international community to start to deal with post-ISIL Iraq problems in Mosul."
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