Islamic State group leaders have been fleeing Mosul as US-backed local forces close in on the jihadists' last Iraqi stronghold, a US general said Wednesday. US Army Major General Gary Volesky, who heads the land component command of the US-led coalition to defeat IS, predicted that foreign fighters will end up forming a large contingent of jihadists remaining in the city, as they have nowhere else to go.
"We are telling Daesh that their leaders are abandoning them. We've seen a movement out of Mosul," he told reporters in a video briefing from Baghdad, using an Arabic acronym for IS. He declined to say how many leaders had left, when they did, or where they were headed, but said they were being attacked in air strikes as they fled. "Where they are going, I will leave that to our (missile) targeteers to take care of," Volesky said. He noted that the Iraqis would screen anyone leaving Mosul, and attempts by foreign fighters to blend in to an expected exodus of displaced people would be thwarted.