Iraqi forces backed by jets and helicopters battled Daesh insurgents inside west Mosul on Saturday but still faced a tough and potentially protracted battle to retake the Daesh group's bastion.
Almost a week into a major push on the city's west bank, they were gaining significant ground, taking on Daesh on several fronts in one of the most intense phases of the four-month-old operation to retake Mosul, AFP reported.
Elite forces from the interior ministry's Rapid Response units that retook Mosul airport pressed north towards the city center but their advance was expected to slow as they moved deeper.
"Right now we're heading towards the Mosul governorate building, we're now about one kilometre from the fourth bridge," the city's southernmost bridge across the Tigris River, Lieutenant Colonel Abdulamir al-Mohammadawi told AFP on the front line.
"We're heading towards the centre and also the Turkish consulate, which we're about 500 metres from," he said, as attack helicopters fired rockets at targets in the Jawsaq neighbourhood.
As they pushed deeper from the outer edges of the city into more densely populated areas, resistance appeared to stiffen.
"Daesh is using houses full of residents as human shields," Mohammadawi said, as tanks and troops rained fire on suspected Daesh snipers.
Moments later, Rapid Response fighters helped two wounded comrades back to the rear for treatment. They moaned in pain and one wore a tourniquet above his knee after being shot in the leg by a sniper.
In the meantime, an Iraqi female reporter, Shifa Gardi, was killed Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded as she was covering the clashes in west Mosul, her channel said.
The 30-year-old journalist for Kurdish network Rudaw became the second reporter to die since the Mosul offensive began four months ago.
Iraqi forces launched a fresh push from the south on February 19, nearly a month after the eastern side of Mosul was declared "fully liberated".
The west bank of Mosul is where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only public appearance as Daesh leader in July 2014 and proclaimed a "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria.