"Army counter-extremism forces managed to capture the government complex, which includes [Nineveh’s] provincial headquarters," Army Commander Lieutenant-General Abdul-Amir Yarullah said in a televised statement.

Yarullah added that army forces had entirely "liberated" Mosul’s Al-Faisaliyah district -- in which the complex is located -- and the nearby Second Bridge, also known as Al-Hurriyah Bridge.

Lieutenant-General Abdul al-Wahab al-Saadi, for his part, a Special Forces commander in the army’s counter-extremism agency, told Anadolu Agency that army forces had also successfully stormed Mosul University in northern Mosul.

According to the army’s media office, ISIL has begun blowing up bridges on the Tigris River -- which runs through the war-battered city -- as Iraqi forces register gains on both banks of the river.

ISIL overran Mosul in mid-2014. Once considered the country’s second largest city in terms of population, it is now one of the extremist group’s last remaining strongholds in Iraq.

Iraqi forces have reportedly captured some 80 percent of Mosul’s eastern districts since a wide-ranging military campaign to retake the city began last October.

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