Battle for Mosul
While Mosul fell to Islamic State militants in a matter of days in 2014, Iraq’s longest fight against IS lasted nearly nine months. The fight, closely backed by airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, brought an end to the extremists’ so-called territorial caliphate, but has also left entire neighborhoods in ruins and nearly 900,000 displaced from their homes.
Thousands of civilians were estimated to have been killed in the fight and many are still buried under collapsed buildings in the Old City, where the fighting was fiercest and most of the buildings severely damaged or destroyed.
