Iraq to declare Mosul victory

WASHINGTON: Iraq will imminently announce a final victory in the battle to recapture Mosul from the IS group, a US general said on Saturday. “An announcement is imminent,” Brigadier General Robert Sofge said from Baghdad. “I don’t want to speculate if it’s today or tomorrow but I think it’s going to be very soon,” he added. The militants that remain in Mosul are fighting to the death in a tiny area of just two blocks of the Old City next to the Tigris River, Sofge said.