Iraqi foreign minister claims Mosul progress is better than expected
By REUTERS
Iraq's foreign minister said on Monday that the fight to wrest back control of Mosul from Islamic State was making progress, citing what he called better-than-expected cohesion within Iraqi security forces and the U.S.-led coalition.Ibrahim Al-Jaafari said it was difficult to predict how long the battle would take, but more than 1,000 Islamic State fighters had been killed, 650 had been taken prisoner, and about one-third of the area had been freed."Those are very good signs for the positive results of the operations. It's going better than we expected," al-Jaafari told reporters after a meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
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