Up to 900 IS fighters killed in Mosul operation: US general

A US general told AFP on Thursday that between 800 and 900 Islamic State group fighters have been killed since the Iraqi-led operation to recapture Mosul from the militants began.

"Just in the operations over the last week and a half associated with Mosul, we estimate they've probably killed about 800-900 Islamic State fighters," Joseph Votel, who heads the US military's Central Command, said in an interview with AFP.

Iraqi security forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters are pushing toward Mosul along several axes and have made relatively quick progress as they approach Mosul, Iraq's second city.

The offensive, which began 10 days ago, has so far been concentrated in towns and villages around Mosul, and resistance may get heavier as Iraqi forces break through IS defences and enter the city itself.

Earlier US estimates had put the population of IS fighters in Mosul itself at between 3,500 and 5,000. Up to another 2,000 were thought to be in the broader Mosul region.

Votel cautioned it was hard to provide precise numbers as IS fighters move around the city and blend in with the local population.

IS has lost the ability to move in large convoys, making it more difficult to replace fighters if it loses them in significant numbers. 

But the US-led coalition against IS has said that the militants can still travel in smaller groups.

The coalition has previously said that it "does not use a casualty count as a measure of effectiveness in the campaign to ultimately defeat (IS) in Iraq and Syria."

Despite this assertion, such figures are periodically announced.

As anti-IS forces moved ever closer on Mosul, the city's residents report that IS militants were shaving their beards and changing hideouts.

Recent advances on the eastern front have brought elite Iraqi forces to within 5km of Mosul, and residents reached by AFP said the militants seemed to be preparing for an assault on the city itself. 

"I saw some Daesh (IS) members and they looked completely different from the last time I saw them," eastern Mosul resident Abu Saif said.

"They had trimmed their beards and changed their clothes," the former businessman said. "They must be scared... they are also probably preparing to escape the city."

Residents and military officials said many IS fighters had relocated within Mosul, moving from the east to their traditional bastions on the western bank of the Tigris river, closer to escape routes to Syria.

The sounds of fighting on the northern and eastern fronts of the Mosul offensive could now be heard inside the city, residents said, and US-led coalition aircraft were flying lower over it than usual.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi fighters have been advancing on Mosul from the south, east and north after an offensive was launched on 17 October to retake the last major Iraqi city under IS control.