US envoy: Fight to retake Mosul in 'final stages'
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HAMAM AL-ALIL -- A senior US official says the fight to retake Mosul from the Islamic State group is approaching its "final stages."
Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for the global coalition against ISIS, says Iraqi forces are "completely defeating" ISIS in one of the most difficult urban battles since World War II.
But he says local Iraqi officials say they will need more funding from the US and others in the international community to rebuild in territory recently retaken from the extremists.
McGurk spoke to The Associated Press from a water treatment plant south of Mosul where Iraqi forces closely backed by the US-led coalition are slowly closing in on the remaining cluster of ISIS-held neighborhoods in the city's west.
