Satellite images released by Stratfor, a US-based consultancy, on Tuesday (October 18) show the area of the city of Mosul as the coalition forces advanced on the terrorists' stronghold.

Residents of Mosul said ISIS (ISIL , IS , Daesh) was using civilians as human shields as Iraqi and Kurdish forces captured outlying villages in their advance.

The leader ISIS was reported to be among thousands of hardline militants still in the city, suggesting the group would go to great lengths to repel the coalition.

ISIS said on Monday its members had targeted the attacking forces with 10 suicide bombs and that their foes had surrounded five villages but not taken them,Reuters reports.

None of the reports could be independently verified.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the offensive on Monday around two years after Iraq's second largest city fell to the militants, who exploited the civil war that broke out in Syria in 2011 to seize territory there.

Fighting is expected to take weeks, if not months, as 30,000 government forces and Kurdish Peshmerga first encircle the city and then attempt to oust between 4,000 and 8,000 ISIS terrorists .

Coalition warplanes attacked 17 ISIS positions in support of the Peshmerga operation in the heavily mined area, the Kurdish statement said, adding that at least four car bombs were destroyed.

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