IS caliphate breakdown, as Iraqi force tightens grip in Mosul

 About three years earlier, 800 jihadist fighters in northern Iraq were poised to become new global threats. Having taken over Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, the extremists proclaimed the birth of their so-called "Islamic State".
As their self-styled caliphate marks its third anniversary, Iraqi forces are getting ready to pronounce its death - at least on their soil. In Mosul, which was the largest city under IS control, the remaining militants are corralled in the narrow alleyways of the Old City.

Elite counter-terrorism units are hunting them down, house-to-house and room-to-room, in an area of about one square mile (2.6 sq km). Troops escorted us through the battle zone, where little stands except mounds of rubble.
Here and there we spotted matted piles of human hair. Locals say militants left their beards behind as they fled. In the streets where they dispensed terror, the corpses of "Islamic State" (IS) fighters now lie rotting in the sun.
Ilham, a gaunt woman in a black headscarf, who was escaping the fighting with her family, said, "We couldn't move, we couldn't do anything."
She added, "They were completely in control of everything. We were afraid to go anywhere."

Sebham Jassem, another civilian, said, "We had no clean water for two months," he said. "Five mortars landed on our house and it was destroyed. We were hungry and scared. Our lives were a disaster."
Major General Maan al-Saadi said, "It depends on the politicians. It's complicated in Iraq. What I can tell you is that this country is now cleaned of IS."
The militants who once controlled a third of Iraq may now be reduced to a few pockets of resistance, but Mosul bears many new scars. Mohammed Abdul Karim had an IS headquarters right beside his house, and a makeshift IS prison behind it. From his living room, the 30-year-old could hear the screams of those inside. A few months ago he joined them. IS detained him at work angry that he was repairing mobile phones, which they had banned.
After Mosul is fully liberated more accounts like this may emerge, and new tensions may come to light - between those who opposed the extremists and those who backed them.
Lt Col Mohammed Diab al-Tamimi said, "We lost many martyrs here, all of them young."

He added, "I miss them. Their families miss them and the country misses them. But they did not die for nothing. They died for this country. May God take them to paradise."
Col Tamimi and his men have been fighting for days to clear a hospital complex where about 200 IS militants are believed to be holed up in a basement.