bloodier. almost 900 isis fighters have been killed. now the remaining are using civilians as human shields and retreated to the center of the city ready for advance of the coalition forces. we have michael holmes with the latest from erbil, iraq. michael. >> reporter: the push continue , john. i think there is a lot of activity in a couple of towns and villages outside of mosul. you have the peshmerga forces four kilometers outside of the mosul. there is an iraqi counterterrorism unit with eyes on mosul at the moment. you still have fighting going on in various places. we were in a town about 20 kilometers from mosul yesterday and it was pounded by coalition war planes. a couple of big 500-pound bombs