MOSUL, Iraq, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Iraqi government forces freed Mosul's eastern Mithaq district and are advancing on the city's core in the drive to free the city from control by the Islamic State.
"Rapid Intervention Forces managed, at noon today, to liberate al-Mithaq neighborhood in the eastern side of the city of Mosul," the Iraqi Defense Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. "Rapid Intervention Forces inflicted heavy human and material losses on the Islamic State, as well as raising Iraqi flag over the buildings of the neighborhood."