Alalam - Iraq

Soldiers have displayed a huge cache of weapons confiscated from ISIS (ISIL, IS, Daesh) as Iraqi forces took full control of more neighbourhoods in the besieged city of Mosul .

Among the armoury seized from ISIS terrorists was a truck bomb and a large haul of ammunition.

Iraqi government forces recaptured the neighbourhoods of Intisar, Jadidat mufti, Salam, Younis Sabawi and Palestine.

The division has been trying to secure the area of Intisar for nearly three weeks, clearing it of booby traps, snipers and remaining militants.

The government forces also said they secured the nearby villages of Shahrazad and Shimaa.

The secured villages surround Ali Rash, a village about four miles southeast of Mosul, which was recaptured from the militants late last month.

Militants have retreated from areas around Mosul into the city.

But the Iraqi army's early advances have slowed as militants dug in, using the civilians inside the city as a human shields, moving through tunnels, and hitting advancing troops with suicide bombs, sniper and mortar fire.

The battle for Mosul, launched five weeks ago, is turning into the largest military campaign in more than a decade of conflict in Iraq since the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi military estimates around 5,000 ISIS terrorists are in Mosul.

A 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi government forces, Kurdish forces and Shiaa fighters is surrounding the city, mirror Reports.

Mosul's capture would be a major step towards dismantling the caliphate, and the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who had ordered his fighters to stay and fight to the end before allegedly withdrawing to a remote area near the Syrian border.

SA - 12