I spent the morning with Iraqi security services from the Emergency Response Divisions 1st Brigade.

ERD troops are closing in on ISIS positions around the Al Nuri mosque in Mosul.

Iraqi army helicopter gunships also pounded the positions with rockets and high caliber machine guns.

But not all of the weapons used so sophisticated.

Ground troops fired improvised rockets containing high explosives which are powerful but imprecise.

Federal Police also showed CGTN an ISIL bomb making facility captured 3 days ago with mortar shells piled high, sacks of explosive powder and metal filings to be packed inside the shells for maximum deadly effect.

The railway station which had been taken a week ago fell back into ISIL hands until ERD troops retook it three days ago.

The passenger hall has collapsed after being hit by air strikes and the building is now nothing but a bombed out shell.

All that remains of the airport at the entrance to this part of the city is a broken and pockmarked runway.

The bitterness of the fight is leaving little of the city standing in its wake.‍