Many Iraqi soldiers said they were shocked, while others brushed the news aside, explaining that in the long run it may be better for their country to prevent the highly educated from immigrating abroad.

“When he made this decision he destroyed us,” said Iraqi special forces Cpl. Ali Latif, whose unit works closely with U.S.-led coalition forces in the fight against ISIS in Mosul. “I heard the news, that many people were stopped in airports, why would (the United States) do this?”

In the more than three months since the operation to retake Mosul was officially launched, Latif says he’s lost six close friends in the fight against the militants. Moving forward he doesn’t believe Trump’s order will dramatically alter the fight against ISIS, but he says it’s already caused mild friction with his U.S. counterparts.

“This (decision) it makes us feel a little bad,” he said.

Deeper inside Mosul a unit of Iraqi soldiers admitted they hadn’t heard the news.

“Have they stopped giving visas to Iraqi people? Does this mean we cannot enter America? Why?” a man yelled from the top of a supply truck.

“Honestly, I love Trump!” said another Iraqi special forces solider, Sgt. Maj. Diar Al-Khair.

“We don’t want our doctors and professors to keep going to another country and make it greater than our own,” he said.

Iraq has suffered from severe brain-drain for over a decade as many of the country’s educated elite have fled the instability in the country that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Meanwhile, Jordan’s King Abdullah II is to begin a working visit to Washington on Monday, according to state media. State media have said the king would meet with administration officials and members of Congress, but did not mention a White House visit.

Pro-Western Jordan isn’t among the countries slapped with the 90-day travel ban, imposed over security concerns, but views refugee resettlement to the U.S. and other countries as a way of easing its own burden; Jordan hosts more than 650,000 displaced Syrians.

Associated Press writer Karin Laub in Amman, Jordan contributed.

MOSUL, Iraq — Iraq’s prime minister on Tuesday declared eastern Mosul “fully liberated” from Islamic State group militants after a day of fierce fighting and more than three months after a massive U.S.-backed operation to retake the city began.

Iraqi forces drove Islamic State militants from one of their last bastions in the eastern half of the city, while aid groups expressed concern for the estimated 750,000 people still in the militant-held west.

In his weekly news conference on Tuesday, Haider al-Abadi hailed the “unmatched heroism of all security forces factions” and public support for the operation.

“Daesh has quickly collapsed and no one expected such collapse,” al-Abadi said, using the Arabia acronym of ISIS. “The heroism of our security forces was behind Daesh’s defeat.”

Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and ISIS’s last urban stronghold in the country, fell into the hands of the extremists in the summer of 2014, when the group captured large swaths of northern and western Iraq.

Asked how long it will take to liberate the western side of the city, al-Abadi told The Associated Press: “I can’t tell now, but we are capable of doing so and we will do so.”

Hundreds of civilians fled from the northeastern Rashidiya neighborhood on foot as Iraqi helicopters circled overhead and fired on militants. At least two wounded Iraqi soldiers were brought back from the front lines after a suicide bombing.

A mortar attack in another neighborhood in eastern Mosul killed an Iraqi army colonel on Sunday, according to Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, a military spokesman.

Meanwhile, Al-Abadi renewed his promise to investigate allegations of human rights violations by security forces in conflict areas and bring those responsible to trial. His comments came a day after ordering a probe into a video on social media purportedly showing government troops beating and killing at least three ISIS suspects in Mosul.

On Monday, a provincial investigative committee in western Anbar province concluded its probe into human rights violations in June near the town of Fallujah. It found that a member of a Shiite militia killed 17 civilians, Al-Abadi said. The militiaman, affiliated with the Badr group, is now in detention and awaiting trial, he said.

The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, expressed concern for civilians in the western half of Mosul in a statement signed by 20 international and local aid groups. She said the cost of food and basic goods is soaring, water and electricity are intermittent and that some residents are forced to burn furniture to keep warm.

“We hope that everything is done to protect the hundreds of thousands of people who are across the river in the west,” Grande said in the statement. “We know that they are at extreme risk and we fear for their lives.”

The statement called on warring parties “to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and ensure they have access to life-saving assistance.”

Mosul is the group’s last major urban bastion in Iraq. The extremists still control large areas in neighboring Syria.

In Geneva, a spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office said it had received “reasonable corroboration” for a report that 19 civilians were killed in an airstrike in the al-Jadida neighborhood of IS-controlled western Mosul last week.

“Attributing responsibility for airstrikes is very difficult,” Ravina Shamdasani said, adding that “it is clear that civilians are being killed in airstrikes.”

A U.S.-led coalition and Iraq’s own air force have been carrying out airstrikes in support of the Mosul operation.

The U.N. human rights office also said IS fighters have taken over “many hospitals” in western Mosul and are using them as military bases. It said the extremist group is diverting food, water and medicine to its fighters.

In Baghdad, a car exploded inside a dealership in the eastern Nahda area on Tueesday. The Interior Ministry said a bomb had been planted on the vehicle and that the blast caused no casualties. A police official and a medical official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters, said the blast killed at least two people and wounded seven.

Abdul-Zahra and Sinan Salaheddin reported from Baghdad. Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

The mosque was among dozens of historical and heritage sites destroyed by ISIS militants after their June 2014 onslaught.

The site is believed to be the burial place of the prophet Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale in stories from both the Bible and the Quran. It was built on an archaeological site dating back to the 8th century B.C. and attracted religious pilgrims from multiple faiths around the world.

Special forces spokesman Sabah al-Numan told The Associated Press that security forces found only the fences alongside the ruins.

The advance comes as Iraqi forces are pushing ISIS out of the last neighborhoods in Mosul’s east and closing in on the Tigris river that roughly divides the city.

While Iraqi forces continue to make territorial gains against ISIS, Mosul’s civilians continue to be killed, wounded and displaced by the fighting.

Walid Mohammed buried his son in a graveyard in eastern Mosul on Tuesday. The young boy had been killed in a mortar attack earlier this month, but at the time it was too dangerous to travel to the graveyard so Mohammed buried him in a school yard not far from his home.

“This is the will of God and his decision, he gave them and he took them back,” he said.

The U.N. said in a statement issued late Monday that the Mosul operation continues to inflict high civilian casualties. The U.N. said more than 1,500 wounded civilians were taken to hospitals in the nearby city of Irbil for trauma care since the operation began in October.

The number does not reflect the estimated hundreds more civilians who receive care at field hospitals in and around Mosul. Iraqi and UN officials believe that one reason so many have been killed and wounded is that ISIS fighters have targeted civilians trying to flee.

The operation has also left more than 148,000 people homeless, according to the statement. Nearly 12,500 people were forced to flee their homes just over the past week, the U.N. said.

More than a million people were estimated to still be living in Mosul in October, when Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake the country’s second largest city from IS.

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad contributed to this report.