United Nations says Mosul's poor struggling to get food

An Iraqi soldier searches a house during clashes with Islamic State fighters in Al-Qasar, southeast of Mosul. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

MOSUL/BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Fighting between Iraqi troops and Islamic State militants has cut water supplies across a large part of Mosul, where poorer families are already struggling to feed themselves, and a local official said the increasingly encircled city was in crisis.

Water was cut to 650,000 people - or 40 percent of residents - when a pipeline was hit during fighting between the jihadists and U.S.-backed Iraqi government forces trying to crush them in their northern Iraq stronghold, a local official said.