Battle to liberate Mosul from IS ‘nearly over’

The Iraqi army says the battle to liberate Mosul from Islamic State militants will be over in just a “few days”. Despite a desperate counter-attack of suicide bombings, IS fighters are now thought to number just a few hundred and are holed up in a small area of the old city.

Over the border in Syria, the capital of the self-declared caliphate, Raqqa, is now almost completely surrounded by US-backed rebel forces. But as IS retreats, the scramble for control of Syria has entered a new and even more dangerous phase.