jihadists were completely surroundeded in west mosul, so d little choice but the fight too the death. iraqi forces carried outt airstrikes overnight, headed a ground attack on the city itself. most of the fighting will be done house to house. it is believed 750,000 civilians are trapped inside the city. losing mosul could spend the end of the extremist caliphate. the jihadists are on the back foot in iraq and syria. they also lost control of a syrian road after a three months .ong battle --the i iraqi air force hitting islamic state targets on the syrian side of the border. it is the first time the operation has been made public. meanwhile the islamic state group says it was behind a pair of car bombings in northern syria a couple of hours apart. day earlier that area in question had just been liberated from the extremists. reporter: left with an unfortunate fate pre-it 49 people were killed in the first car explosion with a second explosion occurring just moments after, killing two turkish sosoldiers. bob,nside the center of al the other just on the outskirts of the town. just one da