The terror group, sometimes referred to as Daesh, is on the back foot in Iraq and Syria as it comes under increasing pressure from air strikes and ground attacks.

ISIS captured Mosul – the biggest city in northern Iraq and a key oil center – in June 2014 but its hold on the area has grown weaker in recent weeks as the Iraqi army and Kurdish forces attack from opposite directions.

Now it appears that forces within the city are also targeting ISIS.

The Iraqi News website said sources reported: ‘ISIS have panicked after the waves of assassinations and have begun to cut off the main roads to the residential neighborhoods, after declaring a state of emergency in the city.’

Several ISIS officials are believed to have been assassinated in the districts of Qayyarah, Sharqat and Bashiqa.

The Iraqi authorities have pledged to retake Mosul this year. A top US general said recently they were on track to meet the target.

The Iraqi News said coalition airstrikes on Tuesday and Wednesday destroyed ISIS headquarters in a forest near Mosul and another within the city.

ISIS recently chainsawed nine youths in half in public in Mosul – after they were accused of belonging to a ‘resistance faction’.
The young men were tied to iron poles at Tal Afar Square before being sliced in two with an electric cutter.

All nine had been accused in an ISIS sharia court of being involved in a resistance movement before being sentenced to death, Daily Mail reported.

Source: alalam.ir