Iraqi forces on Sunday (January 22nd) retook three areas from the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) in Mosul, sealing their control of the east bank, a military official told Diyaruna.

"They liberated al-Malayeen and al-Arabi neighbourhoods and al-Binaa al-Jahiz area and raised the Iraqi flag over the buildings," Ninawa operations commander Lt. Gen. Abdul Ameer Rashid Yarallah said Monday.

These are the last neighbourhoods of the centre of the city on the left bank, AFP reported, with only the neighbourhood of al-Rashidiya, on Mosul's northern edge, left to retake.

Early Monday, an offensive was launched to recapture al-Rashidiya from ISIL, Yarallah said.

"We hope to announce its liberation very soon," he said.

To the north, federal forces have retaken control of the road linking Mosul to Dohuk, a provincial capital in the west of the Kurdish region, the military said in a statement.

Meanwhile, schools have started reopening their doors in the liberated areas of Mosul after about three years of closure, Mosul's director of education, Mohammed Ali al-Tahan, said in a statement Monday.

"The first 70 schools were opened on Monday as part of a plan to reopen 400 schools in the liberated areas," he said.

"The education directorates in Ninawa province have resumed classes in 40 primary and 30 secondary schools in liberated areas that are far from the battle fronts, in the northern and north-eastern parts of Mosul," he said.

Resumption of classes in al-Hadbaa, al-Arabi, al-Andalus and al-Shorta neighbourhoods will be delayed until all schools in those areas have been searched and cleared of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and landmines, he added.

Books and stationery have been delivered to the province, he said, adding that "the army has exerted major efforts to help the teaching staff resume classes".