Serious damage was done during the liberation of Iraq's Mosul from the terrorists in the western part of the city. This was confirmed in yesterday's UN report about the residential areas. As a result of the actions of the coalition backed by the US. Over a 1 000 buildings are destroyed. 300 000 people fled Mosul, and there's no end to this war anytime soon. Tanks entered the Old Town today. Our military correspondent Anton Stepanenko reports from the spot.

Military actions in the Old Town of western Mosul resumed today. The Iraqi army fires missiles at the militants. You can see a cloud of smoke where the missile landed. They fire at short range — only 4 seconds from firing to explosion. The army is destroying the militants' fortifications in the Great Mosque of Al-Nuri with its so-called leaning minaret. For ISIS militants this place is significant.

In June 2014 the quasi-state leader announced the creation of the pseudo-caliphate. The closer the army gets to the mosque, the harder militants fight off. They fight for every house. We finished blocking the terrorists in the Old Town from 3 sides. Only the northern route is free. Now they only have 3 options — give up, be destroyed, or escape. To be honest, at this point the Air Force is only conducting intelligence work. The Old Town is empty. Residents don't walk the streets, they're hiding. If there's anybody there, it's a militant. So the army uses drones for targeted strikes.

Especially around the historic mosque in order not to harm it. Snipers complicate the attack. Even one of them can hold back an entire troop. So our infantry isn't moving forward now. But they help to discover snipers, shooting openly, without hiding, causing the militants to fire at them. In the next room the sniper starts shooting. In the group commander's room there's a monitor, which transmits the surveillance from the cameras of the close-by streets in the line of the upcoming combat. Thanks to this equipment several car bombs driven by suicide bombers were destroyed.





As previous experience shows, after a car blows up, the militants storm the federals' positions. The operation's active phase will begin in a few days. For now we're taking it slow, letting the civilians leave the Old Town. I won't tell you the details, but we can communicate with the civilians on the other side. We indicate the time and a safe passage which they can use to try to leave city.

According to the Iraqi intelligence, the militants don't have a solid line of defense along the Old Town perimeter. Local resistance is carried out by small groups of 3-5 people, at least one of them is a sniper. It looks like it shouldn't be too hard to take over the historic region with the forces the police have. But after massive civilian casualties due to the strikes by the American-led coalition the Iraqi army isn't accelerating the attack on the Mosul trap, where the militants are. Especially because there could still be up to 400,000 civilians there.