The Islamic State will be entirely eradicated from its de facto capital in Mosul by next week, a senior general operating in Iraq said Thursday.
Canadian Armed Forces Brig. Gen. D.J. Anderson, the anti-ISIS coalition's director of partner force development, told reporters that Iraqi security forces have surrounded the terrorist group’s final enclave in Mosul’s Old City, an area now spanning less than 600 square yards.
Roughly 300 ISIS militants are estimated to remain in Mosul. Anderson suggested the number is likely dwindling given that the ISIS-controlled "pocket is shrinking so quickly."
"They're certainly on their last legs in Mosul," he said at a Pentagon briefing, but cautioned "the inevitable and imminent fall of Mosul does not mean that [ISIS] is defeated."
"We're not done yet. It's not like as soon as Mosul falls we're downing tools and suddenly we're focusing on coin," he added.
The militant group still maintains strangleholds in northern Iraq, including Tal Afar, and in the western province of Anbar. Anderson said it will be up to the Iraqi government to determine where coalition troops will move next.
Iraqi forces have faced violent resistance in Mosul in recent days, particularly as militants ramp up suicide bombings in a desperate attempt to hold off defeat. Iraqi commanders told the Associated Press earlier this week that ISIS women are hiding among groups of civilians to target government forces through suicide attacks.
One officer in the command post said the terrorist group’s continued use of human shields, including children, has repeatedly delayed the Iraqi offensive to retake the country’s second-largest city.
"The women are fighting with their children right beside them," Lt. Gen. Sami al-Aridi told the AP. "It’s making us hesitant to use airstrikes, to advance. If it weren’t for this we could be finished in just a few hours."
Iraqi troops are now some 270 yards from the Tigris River, which divides eastern and western Mosul. The eastern half of the city was liberated in in January and has begun moving toward a sense of normalcy with the return of residents and businesses.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi congratulated his forces on a "big victory" in Mosul on Tuesday, but the nearly nine-month battle to retake the city continues. The United Nations estimates that up to 20,000 civilians are trapped in the Old City neighborhood and warns they are in "extreme danger."
Between 2,000 and 3,500 people are fleeing the violence each day, according to the United Nations. The U.S.-led operation to retake Mosul began and October and has already displaced some 87,000 people.
ISIS captured Mosul from the Iraqi government in June 2014, marking the group’s most significant territorial grab. The fall of Mosul would all but signal the collapse of its so-called caliphate.