Alalam - Iraq

Islamic State has been using drones to attack Iraqi troops advancing in the northern city of Mosul, the militant group's last major urban stronghold in the country.

Iraqi forces, launched an offensive on Oct. 17 to retake Mosul. Troops have been fighting inside eastern Mosul since the start of the month.

Army officers showed journalists several drones looking like model aircraft which they said the group had built to scout out targets or launch attacks.

"These drones were found in one of the houses (retaken by the army)," Lieutenant General Abdul Wahab al-Saidi of Iraq Counter Terrorism Service told reporters at a military headquarters in a Mosul suburb.

"Daesh uses drones for surveillance and sometimes it attaches explosives to them and uses to target commanders or headquarters," he said.

The Iraqi military estimates there are 5,000 to 6,000 insurgents in Mosul facing a 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi government units, Kurdish Peshmerga and Shiite militias.

12