Islamic State group militants have blocked the area around a highly symbolic mosque in Mosul's Old City where the group's leader made his first and only public appearance in 2014, a resident said Thursday. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivered a Friday sermon in al-Nuri mosque in 2014 after IS seized almost a third of Iraq and declared an Islamic "caliphate" on territory it controlled in Iraq and neighboring Syria. Mosul's Old City is an ancient district of narrow alleyways and tightly packed homes, two main challenges to security forces. Meanwhile on Thursday, the U.N. special mission to Iraq said violence killed at least 354 civilians and wounded 470 others in Iraq last month. Since then, the IS hold on Mosul has shrunk to just a handful of neighborhoods in and around the Old City district.

Source: ABC News June 01, 2017 11:51 UTC