Iraqi army units launched a fresh assault in southeast Mosul on Tuesday and a senior commander was quoted as saying an armored division had advanced to within less than a mile (1.5 km) of the Tigris River running through the city center. Iraqi television quoted operations commander Lieutenant-General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah as saying troops had entered the Salam Hospital in the southeastern neighborhood of Wahda, close to the river. An army colonel told Reuters the offensive, backed by fresh reinforcements and launched at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, aimed to overwhelm Daesh militants who have been waging fierce counter attacks against the army in the east of the city. The fierce urban warfare has slowed advances by the army's elite Counter Terrorism Services in the east of the city, and the army's Ninth Armoured Division in the southeast. "We are using a new tactic — increasing the numbers of advancing forces and also attacking from multiple fronts to take the initiative and prevent Daesh (the so-called IS) fighters from organizing any counter-attacks," the colonel said by telephone. The troops are part of a 100,000-strong Western-backed coalition of Iraqi soldiers, security forces, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and mainly Shiite paramilitary forces that launched the attack on Daesh's stronghold in Iraq seven weeks ago. — Reuters
