MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arrived in Mosul July 9 to congratulate Iraqi forces on wresting control of the country’s second-largest city from the Islamic State (IS).

Saad al-Hadithi, the spokesman for Abadi, said the formal declaration of victory over IS in what was formerly the terrorist group’s capital would not be announced before the full cleansing of the Old City of Mosul, where fighting continues. In the week leading up to the visit, Al-Monitor spent several days with Iraqi forces on the front lines.

In one part of the Old City, on July 5, a barefoot sniper in uniform sweated profusely in a sweltering tiny lookout room. Covering fire had just been provided below to allow a federal police officer carrying a block of ice in a sling across his back to run across the street, bringing much-needed water to the fighters who were on the verge of dehydration.

Other soldiers nearby dozed off on cardboard in the soporific heat, while about 20 men from the Rapid Response Division, which answers to the Interior Ministry, waited nervously in an alleyway.