IRAQI military forces engaged in the operation to drive Islamic State (Isis) from Mosul confirmed the liberation of the ancient city of Nimrud yesterday.

Mosul operational commander Lieutenant-General Abdul-Amir Raheed Yar Allah said: “The 9th division of the Iraqi army has liberated the town of Nimrud completely and raised the Iraqi flag over its buildings after the enemy suffered heavy casualties.”

The town is near the famed ruins of an ancient Assyrian capital that dates back to the 9th century BC.

Army special forces continued to battle militants in the city of Mosul itself yesterday, where they struggled to advance against waves of suicide car bombs.

Troops are converging from several fronts on Mosul as part of an offensive launched last month. Special forces have advanced furthest so far and hold a handful of districts on the city’s eastern edge.

They claim to have cleared the Qadisiya and Zahra neighbourhoods and are planning to advance further in the coming hours.

They have inched forward slowly over the past week, trying to avoid casualties among their troops and civilians as suicide bombers in armour-plated vehicles emerge from hiding places among densely populated areas.

“The only weapons they have left are car bombs and explosives. There are so many civilian cars and any one of them could be a bomb,” said Maj-Gen Sami al-Aridi.

Troops are building berms and road blocks to prevent car bombs from breaching the front lines where they have struggled to hold territory under heavy Isis counterattacks.

Civilians are paying a heavy toll in the battle for the city, with nearly 50,000 forced from their homes, most living in displaced persons’ camps.

The Norwegian Refugee Council said yesterday that conditions are worsening for non-combatants, especially over the past week.

“Civilians have told us of horrific stories from inside Mosul,” said its Iraq director Wolfgang Gressmann.

“They have given terrifying accounts of Isis moving them from neighbourhood to neighbourhood and from house to house in tactics identical with being used as human shields.”