Iraqi forces have started clearing up the war-torn city of Mosul after months of fighting.

The Old City, Mosul's historical heart, has been among the hardest hit areas by the house-to-house fighting backed by airstrikes, artillery and heavy machine guns used to uproot the Islamic State (IS) militants, who had resisted with suicide bomb attacks and booby-trapped nearly all buildings.

In this part of western Mosul, thousands of structures including an iconic mosque have been destroyed, with many reduced to little more than concrete shells. The streets are strewn with rubble and scrap metal and lined with half-collapsed, bombed-out buildings.

While government soldiers worked to clear up the rubble, the sound of warplanes and sporadic gunfire could still be heard, as Iraqi forces fought to eliminate the last pockets of IS resistance who defiantly remain.