(CNN) Just over a week into the battle for Mosul, and the vast coalition seeking to oust ISIS from Iraq's second city is making swifter than expected progress. But for all its gains -- 78 villages liberated, and nearly 800 ISIS fighters killed as of Monday morning -- the Iraqi coalition is encountering fierce resistance from ISIS, in what is anticipated to be the terror group's last stand in the country. Massively outnumbered by the advancing coalition -- a 90,000-strong force of Iraqi government troops, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and irregular militia soldiers -- ISIS relies on asymmetric warfare tactics to inflict damage on its opponents, and terrorize long-suffering civilian populations.ISIS is putting up a fierce fight to hold on to Iraq's second city, the largest under its controlOutnumbered by advancing forces, it relies on tunnels, terror tactics and suicide bombs
A sulfur facility near Qayyara was set ablaze Thursday, by _ militants who placed explosives and oil in the sulfur deposits and across the factory. Clearing a village of _ is slow, dangerous work that can take months, he said. As well as drawing the _ military's focus and resources away from Mosul, the surprise attacks demonstrate the enduring ability of ISIS sleeper cells to strike deep behind the frontlines -- and underline the enduring vulnerability of supposedly recaptured territory. There are also fears that the terror group is targeting civilian populations by using them as human shields against the coalition advance, as it has done in previous battles in _. An _ intelligence source told CNN that 284 men and boys were executed in Mosul on Thursday and Friday, after they had been taken for use as human shields.