MOSUL, IRAQ—With the fight for Mosul in its final stage Monday, Daesh militants sent female suicide bombers hidden among fleeing civilians, while Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition unleashed punishing airstrikes and artillery fire that set dozens of buildings ablaze.At least one Iraqi soldier was killed and five were wounded in the two separate suicide attacks, the military said. On Sunday, a bomber in women’s clothing killed 14 people at a camp for displaced residents in Anbar province, a provincial official said. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.Read more:U.S. takes on larger role as fight to drive Daesh from Mosul nears its endHundreds flee as Iraqi forces attack last pockets of Daesh resistance in MosulArticle Continued Below“These tactics don’t surprise me,” said Sgt. Ahmed Fadil, who patrolled Mosul’s Old City just 50 metres from the front.The militants “have nowhere to go. They’re trapped,” he said.Monday’s two suicide bombings against Iraqi soldiers followed three other such attacks by women — some of them teenagers — in the previous two days, said Sgt. Ali Abdullah Hussein. </s> The Islamic State group is striking back as Iraqi forces are on the cusp of full victory in Mosul, sending female suicide bombers to target soldiers as the battle for the country's second-largest city nears its end. At least 15 people were killed in the latest assaults across Iraq, officials said Monday.

The attacks underscore the intense violence still plaguing the battered nation and the perils that will remain even after IS militants are pushed out of Mosul.

On Monday morning in Mosul's Old City neighborhood — the scene of IS' last stand, where soldiers are fast closing in on the last remaining pocket of militants — two female suicide bombers, hiding among a group of fleeing civilians, targeted Iraqi troops, killing one soldier and wounding several others.

And at a camp for displaced people in Iraq's western Anbar province, a suicide bomber dressed in a woman's all-covering robe killed 14 on Sunday evening, a provincial official said.

After days of fierce battles, the militant-held territory in Mosul is rapidly shrinking, with IS now controlling about 0.40 square miles.

Using women as suicide bombers is apparently the latest tactic by the militants, Sgt. Ali Abdullah Hussein told The Associated Press as he returned from the front line, his troops carrying the body of their slain comrade wrapped in a blanket.

"They appeared from the basement (of a building) and they blew themselves up," Hussein said of the two female bombers.

The attack happened in the area of the destroyed al-Nuri Mosque, which was the focus of the Iraqi forces' push last week.

Over the past three days, Hussein said at least four such attacks have targeted Iraqi forces as hundreds of Mosul's civilians are fleeing the battles in the Old City's congested streets.

After the explosion on Monday, another group of civilians appeared on the main road, prompting the Iraqi soldiers to immediately draw their weapons. They then yelled to the group of mostly women and children to back away and take another route out.

IS overran Mosul in a matter of days more than three years ago. The U.S.-backed offensive to retake the city was launched last October and has lasted nearly nine months, although Iraqi political and military officials had vowed that victory would be declared by the end of 2016.

Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake the Old City in mid-June and after a dawn push last Thursday, they retook the area around the al-Nuri Mosque, which the militants had blown up just a few days earlier.

The 12th century mosque is hugely symbolic — it was from a pulpit of this mosque that IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed the IS caliphate in July 2014.

After the Iraqi forces retook the landmark al-Nuri Mosque, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared an end to IS' so-called caliphate and pledged victory was "near."

The suicide bombing in Anbar took place at dusk on Sunday, as authorities were accommodating families that had fled from the Islamic State-held town of Qaim, in western Iraq, according to Councilman Taha Abdul-Ghani.

Abdul-Ghani said a police colonel was among the 14 dead, and at least 20 were wounded in the explosion.

The death toll could have been higher, Abdul Ghani said, but the colonel had become suspicious about the person in the long robe and walked up to the attacker, embracing him — presumably to reduce the number of casualties — as he detonated his explosives.

Iraqi forces have pushed IS out of most of Anbar, and though there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the camp attack, it had all the hallmarks of IS, which has in the past months staged large-scale attacks elsewhere in Iraq to distract from its losses in Mosul. </s> MOSUL, Iraq — An Iraqi officer says that two women suicide bombers, hiding among a group of fleeing civilians, targeted Iraqi troops in Mosul, killing one soldier and wounding several.

Sgt. Ali Abdullah Hussein says the attack was the latest by the Islamic State group as Iraqi forces close in on the last pocket of militant-held territory in the Old City neighbourhood. The IS group’s last stand in Mosul is rapidly shrinking, with the militants now controlling just over 1 square kilometre in all.

Hussein says the attack happened on Monday morning in the area of the destroyed al-Nuri Mosque.

He said that over the past three days, at least four such attacks have targeted Iraqi forces as hundreds of civilians flee the fierce fighting in the Old City’s congested streets. </s> HILLA, Iraq (Reuters) - A woman suicide bomber killed at least 31 people and wounded 35 in a crowded market in the town of Musayab, 80 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, on Friday, security sources said.

Islamic State claimed the attack, as well as one at the main bus station in the Shi’ite holy city of Kerbala, just west of Musayab, which killed three people and wounded 15.

A security officer said the bomber in Musayab was a woman and had hidden the bomb under her full-body veil.

Islamic State’s statements identified both bombers as men.

The hardline Sunni Muslim insurgents declared a self-styled “caliphate” over parts of Syria and Iraq three years ago but are now on the brink of losing Mosul, their de-facto capital in Iraq, to a U.S.-backed Iraqi offensive launched in October.

They are also on the back foot in Syria, retreating in the face of a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led military coalition attacking Raqqa, Islamic State’s urban redoubt there. </s> IS women suicide bombers hit back in Mosul; 15 die in Iraq </s> At least 30 people were killed and 35 injured in a suicide bombing in a city south of Baghdad on Friday, reported Reuters. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack through Amaq, its propaganda news agency. The bomber, however, wasn’t identified by the group.

Iraqi security officials said a woman blew herself up at around 11.30 am local time in a market, just east of the holy Shia city of Karbala. “A suicide bomber blew herself up in Musayyib market, causing 20 civilian martyrs,” an interior ministry spokesman said. The bomb was hidden under the woman’s customary full-veil, said a security officer.

At least four of the wounded were in critical condition, said an official of the Musayyib hospital, according to a report in the Hindustan Times.

The group had bombed an ice-cream parlour in Baghdad in May. Close to 25 civilians had died in the attack, reported The Independent.

The militant group has called for increased attacks on “unbelievers” during Ramadan, which began on May 27. It had said the rewards for Jihadis in heaven increase manifold during this period. Five major attacks worldwide , including the London bridge attack, have been claimed by the group ever since. </s> MOSUL, Iraq — The Islamic State group is striking back as Iraqi forces are on the cusp of full victory in Mosul, sending women suicide bombers to target soldiers as the battle for the country's second-largest city nears its end. At least 15 people were killed in the latest assaults across Iraq, officials said Monday.

On Monday morning in Mosul's Old City neighborhood — the scene of the Islamic State's last stand, where soldiers are fast closing in on the last remaining pocket of militants — two women suicide bombers, hiding among a group of fleeing civilians, targeted Iraqi troops, killing one soldier and wounding several others.

And at a camp for displaced people in Iraq's western Anbar province, a suicide bomber dressed in a woman's all-covering robe killed 14 Sunday evening, a provincial official said.

After days of fierce battles, the militant-held territory in Mosul is rapidly shrinking, with the Islamic State now controlling just about 0.40 square miles in all.

Using women as suicide bombers is apparently the latest tactic by the militants, Sgt. Ali Abdullah Hussein told The Associated Press as he returned from the front line, his troops carrying the body of their slain comrade wrapped in a blanket.

"They appeared from the basement [of a building], and they blew themselves up," Hussein said of the two women bombers.

The attack happened in the area of the destroyed al-Nuri Mosque, which was the focus of the Iraqi forces' push last week.

Over the past three days, Hussein said at least four such attacks have targeted Iraqi forces as hundreds of Mosul's civilians are fleeing the battles in the Old City's congested streets.

The Islamic State overran Mosul in a matter of days more than three years ago. The U.S.-backed offensive to retake the city was launched last October and has lasted nearly nine months, although Iraqi political and military officials had vowed that victory would be declared by the end of 2016.

Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake the Old City in mid-June and after a dawn push last Thursday, they retook the area around the al-Nuri Mosque, which the militants had blown up just a few days earlier.

After the Iraqi forces retook the landmark al-Nuri Mosque, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared an end to the Islamic State's so-called caliphate and pledged victory was "near." </s> MOSUL, Iraq -- With the fight for Mosul in its final stage Monday, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants sent female suicide bombers hidden among fleeing civilians, while Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition unleashed punishing airstrikes and artillery fire that set dozens of buildings ablaze.

At least one Iraqi soldier was killed and five were wounded in the two separate suicide attacks, the military said. On Sunday, a bomber in women's clothing killed 14 people at a camp for displaced residents in Anbar province, a provincial official said.

"These tactics don't surprise me," said Sgt. Ahmed Fadil, who patrolled Mosul's Old City just 50 yards from the front.

The militants "have nowhere to go. They're trapped," he said.

Monday's two suicide bombings against Iraqi soldiers followed three other such attacks by women - some of them teenagers - in the previous two days, said Sgt. Ali Abdullah Hussein.

A soldier displayed the school ID card retrieved from the body of one of the bombers, showing her to be only 15. The photo was of serious young woman in a white hijab and indicated she had studied in Bangladesh.

Inside ISIS' self-proclaimed capital

"Most of the people who blew themselves up today are women," said special forces Lt. Col. Salam Hussein. He added that seven women strapped with explosives approached the troops Monday, "but thank God, our units stopped (them)."

Government troops advancing through the Old City were using rougher tactics to clear the remaining pockets of ISIS forces.

The tempo of airstrikes was so great Monday that coalition aircraft couldn't keep up with the requests for air support from Iraqi ground forces. Instead, they sought approval for artillery strikes.

Associated Press drone footage showed the result: dozens of buildings burning in the Old City.

While shops have reopened and civilian traffic fills streets in retaken neighborhoods, thick black smoke continued to rise just a few kilometers away from ISIS-held territory on the bank of the Tigris River that divides Iraq's second-largest city. The area controlled by the militants is less than half a square mile.

ISIS militants swiftly overran Mosul in 2014. The U.S.-backed offensive to retake the city was launched in October and has proceeded slowly, even though Iraqi political and military officials had vowed to declare victory by the end of 2016.

Iraqi forces began their push to retake the Old City in mid-June.

Even though the militants are squeezed into smaller and smaller territory, the danger remains for units like Fadil's.

Mosul on brink of liberation

When they heard cries from civilians just around the corner, he and his colleagues rushed their commanding officer to safety into a nearby home that already had been cleared. They yelled at the group of sobbing women and children to hurry past.

Fadil explained the reason for their caution.

"They cry and then - boom! They explode themselves," he said. "The closer we get to victory, the more suicide bombers they will send."

At one screening point, soldiers anxiously held civilians back at gunpoint, shouting at men and boys to strip to their underwear.

Hussein, of the special forces, and a group of about a dozen men searched on foot Monday for more suicide bombers. An informant pointed out a house occupied by ISIS fighters.

A solider kicked in a door, shouted a warning and threw two grenades into the front room. A second solider stuffed a rag into a plastic jug of gasoline, lit it and threw it inside.

"There are some suicide bombers who refuse to leave the houses, so we're forced to deal with them with smoke and fire and hand grenades," Hussein said, noting that the troops burned only the basement, not the house.

His men seized five suspected ISIS fighters, binding their hands with electrical wire and blindfolding them with scraps of cloth. At least one of the five was arrested.

For most of the soldiers in Mosul, the final days of the grueling battle caps more than three years of fighting the militants.

Hassan Ahmed, a solider with the special forces deployed in the Old City, said he can't deny that the war has changed him.

"It's like I'm heartless - I don't feel anything," he said. "But we are still good people. We have mercy." </s> Powerful blast kills at least nine people and wounds dozens in crowded street of mainly Shia suburb of Iraqi capital.

A suicide bomber detonated a pick-up truck packed with explosives in northern Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least nine people, according to Iraqi officials.

Thirty others were wounded in the powerful blast in the Habibiya area, near Sadr City, a Shia majority neighbourhood in the Iraqi capital.

The explosion targeted a crowded street full of garages and used car dealers.

The attack came a day after a car bomb explosion in southern Baghdad killed at least four people.

The Iraqi capital was rocked by a wave of deadly suicide bombings during the first days of 2017 but relatively few explosions had been reported since.

IN PICTURES: Fighting the flames of ISIL in Iraq

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wednesday's blast, but nearly all suicide attacks are claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group.

In January 2, ISIL, which often targets crowded areas to maximise casualties, claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing that killed 39 people in a busy market in Sadr City.

ISIL is defending Mosul, its last major stronghold in Iraq, against a massive, four-month-old operation by an alliance of forces.
Three female ISIL suicide bombers kill 15 people and injure five in three separate incidents over the last two days as the fight for Mosul winds down.