Iraqi forces face fierce Islamic State attacks after Mosul push

MOSUL, Iraq — Significant Islamic State group counterattacks in southeastern Mosul inflicted heavy losses on Iraqi forces overnight after a new push deeper into the city this week, according to an Iraqi army officer.

Despite the counterattacks, the fresh Iraqi push appears to have relieved pressure on Iraq’s special forces who have been largely leading the fight inside the city on the eastern front.

[...] Wednesday, the Islamic State group’s Amaq news agency released a propaganda video showing captive British photojournalist John Cantlie in what appeared to be central Mosul.

At a small field hospital just a few miles from Mosul’s eastern front line, medics said that by midday Wednesday they had already treated about a dozen Iraqi soldiers injured with gunshot and shrapnel wounds.

Military hospital cots sat in a driveway of a nearby abandoned building flanked by IV stands and oxygen tanks.