Earlier in the day, Abadi formally declared Mosul liberated from IS after nearly nine months of fierce fighting to dislodge the extremist militants from their last major stronghold in Iraq.

"I declare to the whole world the end, failure and collapse of Daesh state, the state of IS group terrorism, which they announced it here in Mosul three years ago," Abadi said in a speech in Mosul.

"We have other missions; reconstruction and clearing Daesh cells, which will need intelligence effort," Abadi said.

Iraq also "needs unity and close ranks, just like we have been unified in eliminating Daesh, we have to be unified to restore stability these areas and the return of displaced people and rebuilding the areas that we liberated," Abadi added in his speech.

On October 17, Abadi announced the start of a major offensive to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city.

Mosul, 400 km north of Iraq's capital Baghdad, came under IS control since June 2017, when government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.

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