Street fighting in Mosul’s narrow alleys as Iraqi army units get closer to the city’s<br />ruined al-Nuri mosque is intensifying, but the army says it will not enter the mosque complex as ISIL<br />is likely to have booby-trapped the rubble.<br /><br />On Thursday morning Iraqi state sources announced the fall of what it dubbed the “mythical state”<br />but on the ground the Islamic extremists are still putting up stiff resistance, and the army <br />says going is slow. ISIL’s last Mosul bastion is the Old City, and the army is retaking it metre by metre to try and<br />protect the civilians trapped within, at a speed of between 50 to 100 metres per day.<br /><br />Some 700 to 800 metres remain to be retaken.<br />
