Iraqi forces on Friday entered west Mosul neighbourhoods, a key stronghold in the shrinking "caliphate" of the Islamic State group, which replied with deadly suicide attacks in Iraq and Syria. As the war on the world's most violent jihadist group escalated, Iraqi warplanes struck IS militants inside neighbouring Syria, a first that Damascus said was coordinated between the two governments. In yet another key landmark in the bloody offensive to retake Mosul, the largest city ever held by the jihadists, elite Iraqi forces punched into districts of the west bank for the first time.



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