Civilian toll mounts

Iraqi forces fought their way into more districts of Mosul but advances in the city's southeast were being slowed by Islamic State's use of civilians for cover, military officials said yesterday.

The United Nations said civilian casualties had streamed into nearby hospitals in the last two weeks as fighting intensified in the jihadist group's last major stronghold in Iraq.

Advances by elite forces in the city's east and northeast have picked up speed in a new push since the turn of the year, and US-backed forces have for the first time reached the Tigris river, which bisects the city.

Recapturing Mosul after more than two years of Islamic State rule would probably spell the end of the Iraqi side of the group's self-declared caliphate, which spans areas of Iraq and Syria.

Forces in the city's eastern and northeastern districts, and in particular the elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), have made rapid gains in past days.

Better defenses against militant car bombs and improved coordination among the advancing troops had helped put Islamic State on the back foot, US and Iraqi military officers said.

But fighting in neighbourhoods in the southeast has been tougher.

"The challenge is that they (IS) are hiding among civilian families, that's why our advances are slow and very cautious," Lieutenant-Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammedawi, a spokesman for the rapid response units of Iraq's federal police, told Reuters. He said militant fighters were hiding in mosques, schools and hospitals, using civilians as human shields.

The United Nations' humanitarian coordination office (OCHA) said nearly 700 people had been taken to hospitals in cities in Kurdish-controlled areas outside Mosul in the last week, and more than 817 had required hospital treatment a week earlier.

The US-backed operation to drive the the militants from Mosul began in October and has recaptured villages and towns surrounding the city, and most of Mosul's eastern half.