HAMAM AL-ALIL, Iraq -- U.S.-backed Iraqi forces launched a large-scale military operation on Sunday to dislodge Islamic State militants from the western half of Mosul city, a battle that is expected to be prolonged and difficult due to a densely packed civilian population and older, narrower streets.

In a briefed televised speech on state TV, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the operation, saying the government forces were moving to "liberate the people of Mosul from Daesh oppression and terrorism forever", using the Arabic acronym for IS.

Al-Abadi called on security forces to deal with civilians properly and respect human rights.

Plumes of smoke were seen rising into the sky early Sunday morning as U.S.-led coalition jets struck militant positions southwest of Mosul and militarized police fired artillery toward the city. Heavily armed police units were getting ready to move north with their armoured vehicles from a base just southwest of the city.

"This is zero hour and we are going to end this war, God willing," said Mahmoud Mansour, a police officer, as he prepared to move out.

The immediate objective of the operation was to take the villages on the southern outskirts of Mosul airport, a police spokesman told The Associated Press. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity in line with standard procedures.

Police units quickly moved into the village of Athba about three miles southwest of the city's airport, encountering only light resistance, according to an AP reporter on the scene. Separately, the army's 9th armoured division moved into the village of Bakhira, also southwest of the city, the Iraqi Ministry of Defence said.

Shortly after the announcement, the United Nations warned that hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside their houses "are at extreme risk" with dwindling fuel and food supplies and scare drinking water and electricity.

"The situation is distressing. People, right now, are in trouble," Lise Grande, Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, said in a statement. "We are hearing reports of parents struggling to feed their children and to heat their homes," Grande said.

Citing informants from inside the western side, the U.N. said nearly half of all food shops were closed and bakeries had shut down due to a lack of fuel and an inability to purchase costly flour. Prices of kerosene and cooking gas have skyrocketed and many of the most destitute families are burning wood, furniture, plastic or garbage for cooking and heating.

"Children and their families are starting to face critical shortages of safe drinking water," Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Representative in Iraq, was quoted as saying in the statement. "Three out of five people now depend on untreated water from wells for cooking and drinking as water systems and treatment plants have been damaged by fighting or run out of chlorine."

The humanitarian agencies were gearing up to aid 250,000 to 400,000 civilians who may flee due to fighting, the statement said. The U.N. estimates that about 750,000 civilians may be left in western Mosul.

The Commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, hailed the Iraqi forces in a statement as an "increasingly capable, formidable, and professional force."

"Mosul would be a tough fight for any army in the world, and the Iraqi forces have risen to the challenge," said Townsend. "They have taken the fight to the enemy and sacrificed their blood for the people of Iraq and the rest of the world."

Eastern Mosul was retaken from IS by Iraqi forces last month after a three-month battle, but the west of the city remains in the hands of the extremists. Unlike the east, much of the west is composed of old houses forming narrow alleyways, making the use of armoured vehicles more difficult and promising a tougher fight.

Iraqi special operations forces, regular army and federal police units are taking part in the offensive along with government-sanctioned paramilitary forces, made up mainly of Shiite militias, operating on the city's outskirts.

Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the last IS urban stronghold in the country, fell into the hands of the extremists in the summer of 2014, when the group captured large swaths of northern and western Iraq.

Associated Press writer Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad contributed to this report. </s> HAMAM AL-ALIL, Iraq -- U.S.-backed Iraqi forces launched an air-and-ground offensive Sunday to retake western Mosul from Islamic State militants and drive the extremist group from its last major urban bastion in Iraq.

"It's a new dawn, a dawn of victories," Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in an address on state television early Sunday, as Iraqi forces, including units from the army, federal police and state-sanctioned militias, advanced on Mosul from the south and west.

The operation aims to reverse the Islamic State's occupation of cities and towns across Iraq since the summer of 2014, a defeat for al-Abadi's predecessor, former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and a setback that raised doubts about the morale and capabilities of Iraq's military. The latest advance on Mosul comes at a time of rising tension between the Iraqi government and its principal military partner, the United States, over President Donald Trump's administration's decision to halt immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iraq.

It is also taking place amid new concerns about the condition of hundreds of thousands of civilians still trapped in the western part of the city. Food, water and cooking fuel have all been reported in short supply, and residents have described increased harassment from Islamic State fighters preparing for the attack.

Overnight, planes covered the ground with leaflets, directly appealing to the group's fighters to surrender.

"To those of you who were intrigued by the ISIS ideology," one of the leaflets said, using an acronym for the Islamic State, "this is your last opportunity to quit your work with ISIS and to leave those foreigners who are in your homeland. Stay at home, raising the white flags as the forces approach."

The operation that began Sunday crossed the Tigris River, which bisects Mosul, to move into its western district, where Iraqi commanders expect an even tougher fight, with close-quarters urban combat in narrow streets, through neighborhoods densely packed with civilians.

Ground units pushed into a belt of villages outside the country's second-largest city, and plumes of smoke rose into the sky early in the morning as U.S.-led coalition jets struck militant positions southwest of Mosul and militarized Iraqi police fired artillery.

"This is zero hour and we are going to end this war, God willing," said Mahmoud Mansour, a police officer, as he prepared to move out.

Throughout the night, a steady barrage targeted Islamic State positions just north of the village of Areyj, about 7 miles outside of Mosul.

The operation comes after an overall push to free Mosul that began in October, with local troops pushing from the east into the city's geographically larger but more sparsely populated eastern half. In late January, they reached the banks of the Tigris River and declared the city's eastern section liberated, but the militants continued to stage attacks there, including two suicide bombings against government forces on Sunday.

Because all five of the bridges spanning the Tigris have been bombed, for this operation Iraqi troops traced a circuitous path to western Mosul, initially approaching it from the city's south.

Police units quickly entered the village of Athba, about 3 miles southwest of Mosul's international airport, encountering only light resistance. Separately, the Iraqi Army's 9th Division moved into the village of Bakhira, also southwest of the city, the Ministry of Defense said.

The U.S.-led coalition has been providing close air support throughout the 4-month-old Mosul offensive and carried out nine airstrikes against the Islamic State near Mosul on Saturday, Central Command said. U.S. special operations forces are embedded with some Iraqi units, and thousands of American soldiers are in Iraq to provide logistical and other support.

Despite the sight of U.S. special forces near the front lines, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said Sunday during a visit to Arab allies in Abu Dhabi there has been no change to rules of engagement regarding U.S. forces' role in the Mosul operation since President Donald Trump took office.

"We are very close to it, if not already engaged in that fight," Mattis told reporters in Abu Dhabi.

He said the U.S.-backed coalition fighting the Islamic State would "continue with the accelerated effort to destroy" the group.

"The isolation phase has been going on for some time now," Mattis said. "The attack into the city is something I don't want to get into details about because I owe confidentiality to the troops who are actually making the attack."

He plans to present the White House with a more aggressive plan to combat Islamic State by month's end, but acknowledged that U.S. airstrikes have pounded Islamic State targets in western Mosul from the air in the days ahead of the Iraqi assault, hitting militant command and control facilities.

Citing witnesses in western Mosul, the United Nations said nearly half of all food shops were closed and bakeries had shut down for lack of fuel and an inability to purchase costly flour. Prices of kerosene and cooking gas have skyrocketed, and many of the most destitute families are burning wood, furniture, plastic or garbage for cooking and heating.

The U.N. also said hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside their homes in Mosul "are at extreme risk," with dwindling fuel, food and water and scarce electricity.

"The situation is distressing. People, right now, are in trouble," Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said in a statement. "We are hearing reports of parents struggling to feed their children and to heat their homes."

Peter Hawkins, of the U.N. agency for children, said: "Three out of five people now depend on untreated water from wells for cooking and drinking as water systems and treatment plants have been damaged by fighting or run out of chlorine."

The humanitarian agencies were gearing up to aid 250,000 to 400,000 civilians who may flee because of the fighting, the statement said. The U.N. estimates that 750,000 civilians may be left in western Mosul.

An advance the Islamic State has made is improving its mastery of the use of small drones, which are available off-the-shelf in malls across the region, including in Irbil, the nearest major city to Mosul. They use the drones to pinpoint army positions and to target them, and recently recovered Islamic State documents show how the group has cobbled together its own drone program. Iraqi forces describe how they frequently see the 2- to 4-foot-long aircraft overhead, whining like a lawn mower. Then 30 minutes later, they will take incoming fire at that location.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, a top U.S. commander in Iraq, said the Iraqi forces are an "increasingly capable, formidable and professional force."

"Mosul would be a tough fight for any army in the world, and the Iraqi forces have risen to the challenge," he said in a statement.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, an Iraqi military spokesman, said a suicide bomber struck a patrol of government-allied Sunni tribal fighters in the Zihoor neighborhood, while another targeted Iraqi troops in Nabi Younis. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for both attacks.

Rasool declined to provide casualty figures. Two policemen said one Sunni fighter was killed and nine were wounded in the first attack, while the second attack wounded five soldiers. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information.

Iraqi special operations forces, regular army and federal police units are taking part in the offensive along with government-approved paramilitary forces, mainly consisting of Shiite militias, which are operating on the city's outskirts.

Information for this article was contributed by Bram Janssen, Sinan Salaheddin, Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Maamoun Youssef and Joseph Krauss of The Associated Press, by Nabih Bulos And W.J. Hennigan of Tribune News Service, and by Rukmini Callimachi and Falih Hassan of The New York Times. </s> The Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Sunday, (19 February) announced the launch of a ground offensive in western Mosul to drive the Islamic State (Isis) out of the area.

"We announce the start of a new phase in the operation, we are coming to Nineveh to liberate the western side of Mosul. Our forces are beginning the liberation of the citizens from the terror of Daesh [IS]," he added.

The Iraqi air force has reportedly dropped leaflets on western Mosul warning its residents of an impending ground offensive to oust the IS (Daesh) from the area, the Iraqi defence ministry said in a statement, Reuters reported.

The statement said the leaflets "contain instructions for the citizens to get ready to welcome the Iraqi forces that are coming to liberate their areas and to warn the Daesh (Islamic State) members to lay down their weapons and surrender".

At least 650,000 civilians in western Mosul are under siege along with the Isis militants. The US backed Iraqi forces were successful in ousting the terrorist group from the eastern part of Mosul in a battle that came to an end in January and now have all but surrounded the western side.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has warned that the safety of the thousands of civilians trapped in the area is a top priority.

Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq told the BBC that it had made the safety of civilians its top priority when the Iraqi forces waged an offensive to take back eastern Mosul.

She added that the Iraqi forces "need to ensure that that humanitarian concept of operations is adhered to, and that all of the parties to the conflict do absolutely everything they can to ensure that civilians survive the battle, and that they live."

"Absolutely nothing is more important going into the campaign to retake western Mosul," Grande said.

According to reports, retaking western Mosul could prove to be a bigger challenge due to its narrow streets. </s> U.S.-backed Iraqi forces launched a large-scale military operation on Sunday to dislodge Islamic State militants from the western half of Mosul, the latest phase in a four-month-old offensive to retake Iraq's second largest city.The battle for western Mosul promises to be the most daunting yet, as the half of the city west of the Tigris River has older, narrower streets and is still home to hundreds of thousands of civilians, who have been told to shelter in place.Iraq declared eastern Mosul "fully liberated" last month, but IS has continued to launch attacks there. Hours after the latest operation was announced, suicide bombers struck troops and pro-government Sunni militiamen in eastern Mosul.Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the operation on state TV, saying government forces were moving to "liberate the people of Mosul from Daesh oppression and terrorism forever," using the Arabic acronym for IS. He called on security forces to deal with civilians properly and to respect human rights.Plumes of smoke were seen rising into the sky early Sunday morning as U.S.-led coalition jets struck militant positions southwest of Mosul and militarized Iraqi police fired artillery toward the city. Heavily armed police units were getting ready to move north with their armored vehicles from a base just southwest of the city."This is zero hour and we are going to end this war, God willing," said Mahmoud Mansour, a police officer, as he prepared to move out.The immediate objective was to take the villages on the southern outskirts of Mosul airport, a police spokesman told The Associated Press. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.Police units quickly moved into the village of Athba, about 3 miles (5 kilometers) southwest of the airport, encountering only light resistance, according to an AP reporter traveling with them. Separately, the army's 9th Division moved into the village of Bakhira, also southwest of the city, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense said.The United Nations meanwhile warned that hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside their houses "are at extreme risk," with dwindling fuel and food supplies and scare drinking water and electricity."The situation is distressing. People, right now, are in trouble," Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said in a statement. "We are hearing reports of parents struggling to feed their children and to heat their homes," Grande said.Citing witnesses in western Mosul, the U.N. said nearly half of all food shops were closed and bakeries had shut down due to a lack of fuel and an inability to purchase costly flour. Prices of kerosene and cooking gas have skyrocketed, and many of the most destitute families are burning wood, furniture, plastic or garbage for cooking and heating."Three out of five people now depend on untreated water from wells for cooking and drinking as water systems and treatment plants have been damaged by fighting or run out of chlorine," said Peter Hawkins, of the U.N. agency for children.The humanitarian agencies were gearing up to aid 250,000 to 400,000 civilians who may flee due to fighting, the statement said. The U.N. estimates that about 750,000 civilians may be left in western Mosul.Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, a top U.S. commander in Iraq, said the Iraqi forces are an "increasingly capable, formidable, and professional force.""Mosul would be a tough fight for any army in the world, and the Iraqi forces have risen to the challenge," he said in a statement. "They have taken the fight to the enemy and sacrificed their blood for the people of Iraq and the rest of the world."Iraqi forces spent three months driving IS from eastern Mosul, but the militants appear to have left sleeper cells to carry out attacks behind the front lines.Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, an Iraqi military spokesman, said a suicide bomber set off struck a patrol of Sunni tribal fighters in Zihoor neighborhood, while another targeted Iraqi troops in Nabi Younis.Rasool declined to provide casualty figures. Two policemen said one Sunni fighter was killed and nine wounded in the first attack, while the second attack wounded five soldiers. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.Iraqi special operations forces, regular army and federal police units are taking part in the offensive along with government-approved paramilitary forces, mainly consisting of Shiite militias, which are operating on the city's outskirts.Mosul fell to IS in the summer of 2014, along with large swaths of northern and western Iraq. It is the extremist group's last major urban bastion in Iraq. </s> Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arrived in Mosul on Sunday and congratulated Iraqi armed forces for driving the extremist militant Islamic State (ISIS) group out of its major stronghold in the country.

Iraqi armed forces, backed by a United States-led coalition, were battling ISIS in Mosul for months. The victory marks the end of the battle that left Iraq's second largest city in ruins, killed hundreds of people and displaced almost a million civilians.

Abadi's office said he was visiting "liberated" Mosul to congratulate his "heroic fighters". However, the Prime Minister later suggested he would only declare victory once final pockets of resistance were cleared.

"Victory is certain, and the (IS) remnants are surrounded... and it is just a matter of time for us to announce the great victory to our people," Abadi said in a statement.

The delay "comes out of my respect and support for our... forces who are continuing the clearing operation," he said.

"There are only one or two pockets of Daesh remnants left," and "the major victory is in hand," the premier added, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.

Iraqi troops are reportedly still battling ISIS militants in some of the last areas of resistance, and could be facing guerrilla attacks for weeks.

The prime minister's office said that Abadi met commanders in Mosul and issued a series of orders on "sustaining victories and eliminating the defeated remnants" of ISIS, as well as "establishing security and stability in the liberated city."

Although most of Mosul has been reclaimed by the Iraqi forces, they still face dangers ahead with ISIS sleeper cells and suicide bombers.

The forces would also need to clear all the houses in the city, which are rigged with explosive traps so that civilians can return to the region.

The battle against ISIS is still a long way to go in Iraq as other cities continue to remain under the group's control. </s> Iraqi security forces are clearing the final pockets of resistance by Islamic State militants in the city of Mosul.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi went to Mosul on Sunday to congratulate his troops on "liberating" the city, but he stopped short of declaring victory.

The militants were said to hold an area about 180m (590ft) long and 45m wide.

The battle for Mosul has taken almost nine months, left large areas in ruins, killed thousands of civilians and displaced more than 920,000 others.

Commanders from the US-led coalition that has provided air and ground support to Iraqi forces said the urban combat had been most intense since World War Two.
• Haunted faces of families freed from IS
• Battle for Mosul: The story so far

Although Mr Abadi made no formal declaration of victory on Sunday, he stressed that it was "just around the corner".

Using a pejorative term for IS based on an Arabic acronym of its former name, he said the "remnants of Daesh are besieged in a few inches" and expressed "appreciation for the heroic forces determined to put an end to the myth of Daesh for good".

"One or two pockets are still controlled by IS militants who have no more than two options: to surrender or to be killed," he added.

On Monday morning, Iraqi army officers estimated that only a few dozen militants were still putting up resistance in a small part of the Old City, near the western bank of the River Tigris. Most of the civilians left there were believed to be members of the militants' families, who were being used as human shields, they added.

The BBC's Jonathan Beale in Mosul says a steady stream of civilians, weak through hunger and lack of water, is still being led out of the Old City.

Search and rescue teams have also been pulling out many bodies from mountains of rubble, our correspondent adds.

The UN estimates that the fighting on the ground and air strikes have damaged more than 5,000 buildings and destroyed 490 in the densely-populated Old City alone.

"It's a relief to know that the military campaign in Mosul is ending. The fighting may be over, but the humanitarian crisis is not," said the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande.

"Many of the people who have fled have lost everything. They need shelter, food, health care, water, sanitation and emergency kits. The levels of trauma we are seeing are some of the highest anywhere. What people have experienced is nearly unimaginable."
• After Mosul: The Iraqi towns still under IS control

IS militants overran Mosul in June 2014, before seizing control of large parts of northern and western Iraq. The following month, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his first and only public appearance as IS leader at the city's Great Mosque of al-Nuri, and gave a speech proclaiming the creation of a "caliphate".

IS blew up the mosque almost exactly three years later as Iraqi troops prepared to retake it - a move Iraq's prime minister called a "formal declaration of defeat".

Our correspondent says the jihadists may have lost militarily in Mosul, but this is not their end in Iraq nor the end of their twisted ideology.

IS still controls territory in three areas of Iraq - around Hawija, 130km (80 miles) south-east of Mosul; around Tal Afar, 65km west; and from Ana to Al-Qaim in the Euphrates river valley, 250km to the south-west.

IS also holds a string of towns along the Euphrates in Syria, including Albu Kamal and Mayadin, but its stronghold of Raqqa is besieged by US-backed fighters. </s> HAMAM AL-ALIL, Iraq — U.S.-backed Iraqi forces launched a major air-and-ground offensive Sunday to retake western Mosul from Islamic State militants and drive the extremist group from its last major urban bastion in Iraq.

Ground units pushed into a belt of villages outside the country's second-largest city, and plumes of smoke rose into the sky early in the morning as U.S.-led coalition jets struck militant positions southwest of Mosul and militarized Iraqi police fired artillery.

"This is zero hour and we are going to end this war, God willing," said Mahmoud Mansour, a police officer, as he prepared to move out.

The United Nations warned that hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside their homes in Mosul "are at extreme risk," with dwindling fuel, food and water and scarce electricity.

Iraq declared eastern Mosul "fully liberated" last month after three months of fierce fighting, but the militants have continued to stage attacks there, including two suicide bombings against government forces on Sunday.

The battle for western Mosul promises to be even more daunting, as the half of the city west of the Tigris River has older, narrower streets and is still heavily populated.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the latest operation on state TV. Using the Arabic acronym for IS, he said government forces were moving to "liberate the people of Mosul from Daesh oppression and terrorism forever."

Police units quickly entered the village of Athba, about 3 miles (5 kilometers) southwest of Mosul's international airport, encountering only light resistance. Separately, the Iraqi Army's 9th Division moved into the village of Bakhira, also southwest of the city, the Ministry of Defense said.

The U.S.-led coalition has been providing close air support throughout the 4-month-old Mosul offensive and carried out nine airstrikes against IS near Mosul on Saturday, Central Command said. U.S. special operations forces are embedded with some Iraqi units, and thousands of American soldiers are in Iraq to provide logistical and other support.

"We are very close to it, if not already engaged in that fight," U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters in Abu Dhabi. He declined to go into further detail, saying he owed "confidentiality" to the troops.

Citing witnesses in western Mosul, the United Nations said nearly half of all food shops were closed and bakeries had shut down for lack of fuel and an inability to purchase costly flour. Prices of kerosene and cooking gas have skyrocketed, and many of the most destitute families are burning wood, furniture, plastic or garbage for cooking and heating.

"The situation is distressing. People, right now, are in trouble," Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said in a statement. "We are hearing reports of parents struggling to feed their children and to heat their homes."

Peter Hawkins, of the U.N. agency for children, said: "Three out of five people now depend on untreated water from wells for cooking and drinking as water systems and treatment plants have been damaged by fighting or run out of chlorine."

The humanitarian agencies were gearing up to aid 250,000 to 400,000 civilians who may flee because of the fighting, the statement said. The U.N. estimates 750,000 civilians may be left in western Mosul.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, a top U.S. commander in Iraq, said the Iraqi forces are an "increasingly capable, formidable and professional force."

"Mosul would be a tough fight for any army in the world, and the Iraqi forces have risen to the challenge," he said in a statement.

Iraqi forces drove IS from eastern Mosul last month, but the militants appear to have left behind sleeper cells to carry out attacks.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, an Iraqi military spokesman, said a suicide bomber struck a patrol of government-allied Sunni tribal fighters in the Zihoor neighborhood, while another targeted Iraqi troops in Nabi Younis. IS claimed responsibility for both attacks.

Rasool declined to provide casualty figures. Two policemen said one Sunni fighter was killed and nine were wounded in the first attack, while the second attack wounded five soldiers. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information.

Iraqi special operations forces, regular army and federal police units are taking part in the offensive along with government-approved paramilitary forces, mainly consisting of Shiite militias, which are operating on the city's outskirts.

Mosul fell to IS in the summer of 2014, along with large swaths of northern and western Iraq.

Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, and Maamoun Youssef and Joseph Krauss in Cairo contributed to this report. </s> By Mustafa Salim, Kareem Fahim and Dan Lamothe, The Washington Post

IRBIL, Iraq – Iraqi forces resumed their offensive against the Islamic State in Mosul on Sunday after a weeks-long pause, aiming to capture the militant-controlled western half of the city, where the tight, impassable streets and teeming neighborhoods will pose a formidable challenge to the advancing fighters.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the offensive in a televised address early Sunday, calling it “a dawn of victories.” As he spoke, units from Iraq’s army, federal police and state-sanctioned militias approached Mosul from the south and west. By day’s end, they had captured a dozen tiny and mostly vacant villages south of Mosul, along with an electricity station, officials said.

The painless start belied a complicated and arduous battle ahead. Eastern Mosul was captured in January after months of punishing urban combat that left hundreds of civilians dead and elite Iraqi units battered by the stiff militant defenses, including roadside bombs, sniper fire and explosives-laden vehicles.

Iraqi troops will face all that and worse in western Mosul, across the bombed-out bridges on the Tigris River, fighting in a warren of streets too narrow for tanks against Islamist militants who have had months to prepare a deadly welcome. Each passing week of combat poses growing risks to hundreds of thousands of civilians still in the city, facing shortages of food, water, electricity and medicine and all but sequestered in their homes until Iraqi troops arrive.

“Families in western Mosul tell us escape is not an option – if they try to flee, they risk summary execution by ISIS fighters or a gauntlet of sniper fire and land mines,” Maurizio Crivallero, the Iraq country director for Save the Children, the Britain-based charity, said in a statement last week, using an acronym for the Islamic State.

An estimated 350,000 children remain trapped in the city, he said. “The impact of artillery and other explosive weaponry in those narrow, densely-populated streets is likely to be more deadly and indiscriminate than anything we have seen in the conflict so far,” he said.

U.S. troops involved in the air campaign said Sunday that there is broad recognition that it will be harder to carry out airstrikes in the western part of the city, citing the way remaining fighters have entrenched themselves as well as the closely settled nature of neighborhoods.

“It’s going to be a full-on cat-and-mouse fight in western Mosul,” said Air Force Lt. Col. August Pfluger, a squadron commander and F-22 Raptor pilot. “We are literally fighting city block by city block, and putting ordnance where the Iraqi ground forces want them.”

The offensive aims to reverse the Islamic State’s stunning advance into cities and towns across Iraq in the summer of 2014, a humiliating defeat for Nouri al-Maliki, Abadi’s predecessor as premier, and a setback that raised concerns about the morale and capabilities of Iraq’s military.

The latest advance on Mosul also comes at a time of rising tension between the Iraqi government and the United States over the White House decision to halt immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iraq.

The Trump administration’s escalating condemnations of Iran, a dominant power in Iraq and a sponsor of Shiite militias fighting alongside Iraqi government units, has also threatened to complicate the efforts against the Islamic State.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, speaking Sunday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, said that U.S. forces would continue “with the accelerated effort to destroy ISIS.”

Before the military push Sunday, thousands of leaflets were dropped over western Mosul, announcing the impending offensive and asking residents to “receive your brothers in the armed forces and cooperate with them.”

In the past few days, the United States has also stepped up its air sorties over Mosul, to about 30 to 50 a day from about 12 to 20, said Col. Kevin M. Eastland, vice commander of the Air Force’s 380th Air Expeditionary Wing. The unit has gone from using two of the six F-22s it has in the Middle East per day to four – a pace commanders do not consider sustainable for long periods because of maintenance requirements.

An F-22 pilot who asked that his name not be published because of security concerns, said some of his recent airstrikes hit a police station used by the Islamic State in Mosul and a command-and-control center. He and his colleagues had been in somewhat of a “lull,” in which they would often return to base hours later with some of their bombs, he said, but had received a list a few days ago that included about 110 “deliberate” targets that were planned for weeks by U.S. military and intelligence officials.

On the ground, the first military objectives include an Islamic State-controlled village and Mosul’s airport, both in the south of the city, Iraqi commanders said. On Sunday, in a reminder of the Islamic State’s continued ability to strike behind Iraqi lines, at least two suicide bombers carried out attacks in eastern Mosul, killing at least one person, officials said.

Fahim reported from Istanbul and Lamothe from Abu Dhabi. </s> Irbil, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi forces have taken control of several key government buildings and a bridge in western Mosul.

Among the buildings re-captured from ISIS on Monday were the Mosul Museum , the judicial government complex and the Nineveh police directorate building, Abdel Amir al-Mohamadi, Commander of the Rapid Response Forces of the Iraqi Federal Police, told CNN.

The supreme court, central bank and electricity and water authority headquarters were also re-taken.

Smoke rises following an airstrike in western Mosul during the offensive Monday.

It is the first time these buildings have been under Iraqi government control since 2014. Located in a strategic area, the recaptured buildings will provide better access to Mosul's old city, which forces are seeking to recapture.

"The Mosul museum is completely destroyed and leveled to the ground. ISIS militants have looted and destroyed the museum artifacts and have rigged explosives around the buildings and leveled it to the ground," al-Mohamadi told CNN.

The offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq's second most populous city, began in October 2016.

Divided into east and west by the Tigris river, the forces are now in the second phase, launched on February 19, to clear militants from the west, having liberated the east in January.

Iraqi forces also captured the the Al-Huriya bridge on Monday, the second of five bridges across the Tigris to be seized from ISIS control, according to Iraqi federal police.

In February, the International Rescue Committee warned this part of the operation to retake Mosul could be the "most dangerous phase" for civilians as Iraqi troops seek to secure densely populated areas amid ISIS resistance.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Iraq's Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces arrived in Mosul Tuesday to inspect the ground forces that won back the government area on Monday, according to a statement from the Iraqi Prime Minister's office.
Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says U.S.-backed Iraqi forces have launched an operation to regain control of western Mosul from ISIL militants. The United Nations says humanitarian agencies are setting up in these older sections of the city where, already, food and fuel supplies are dwindling, running water is scarce, and electricity in many neighborhoods is unreliable for the estimated 800,000 civilians.