DUSHANBE, 26.12.2016. /NIAT “Khovar”/. A total of 97 Islamic State (IS, banned in Tajikistan) militants were killed on Sunday in heavy clashes with the security forces and an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition aircraft in the city of Mosul in northern Iraq, Xinhua news agency reports citing the statement of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command.

The soldiers of the ninth armored Division repelled attacks by dozens of IS militants and suicide car bombs on the recently-freed neighborhood of al-Intisar, al-Shaima and al-Salam in southeastern Mosul, leaving 51 militants killed and destroying four suicide car bombs, along with destroying three more vehicles carrying extremist militants, a statement by the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said.

Another IS attack occurred on the positions of the federal police, just south of Mosul, but the troops repelled the attack, killing 21 militants and destroying two suicide car bombs, the statement said.

Also on Sunday, based on intelligence reports an international coalition warplane conducted an airstrike on a building in al-Wahda neighborhood, where many IS militants were believed hiding inside preparing for an attack on the security forces, leaving some 25 militants killed, according to the statement.

The Iraqi forces continued during the day their clearing operations in the freed neighborhoods in the eastern side of Mosul, locally known as the left bank of the Tigris which bisects the city.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in a recent report that 103,872 men, women, and children have fled their homes in Mosul and its adjacent districts since the beginning of military offensive in October to reclaim the IS largest stronghold in Iraq.

The number of displaced people in and near Mosul is rising everyday.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Oct. 17 announced a major offensive to retake Mosul, the country’s second largest city.

Since then, the Iraqi security forces, backed by international coalition forces, have inched to the eastern fringes of Mosul and made progress on other routes around the city.

Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under the IS control since June 2014.