Residents of Mosul have started returning to their city

Residents of Mosul have started returning to the city amid an image of ruins all over the old city.

Residents of Mosul have started returning to the city amid an image of ruins all over the old city.

“They should just bulldoze the whole thing and start over,” a local resident said, gazing at the rows of collapsed buildings with their contents strewn across the upturned streets.

Dozens of those displaced by the fighting have returned to West Mosul, which saw some of the fiercest fighting in nine-month battle to rout the militants from their stronghold in Iraq’s second-largest city.