Obama hopes there will be progress on Mosul by year-end

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday that the battle against the Islamic State militant group in Mosul would be challenging but he was confident it would move forward rapidly. Speaking after he met Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Obama also said he hoped for progress by the end of the year on Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city which fell to the Islamic State militant group in June 2014. "This is going to be a challenging battle. Mosul is a large city and ISIL has embedded itself deeply within that city," Obama said, referring to the Islamic State group by an acronym. "We feel confident that we will be in a position to move forward fairly rapidly," he added, saying it would be necessary to rebuild Mosul to prevent militants from returning and that he would ask the U.S. Congress and other nations to support that effort. Abadi said he hoped that in the next months the militant group would be kicked out of Mosul. Iraqi commanders have indicated an operation to dislodge the group from the city could begin by late October. (Reporting by Jeff Mason, Writing by Arshad Mohammed; editing by G Crosse and Phil Berlowitz)