BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces reached one of Mosul’s five destroyed bridges on Monday as they pushed deeper into the western half of Iraq’s second largest city, driving Islamic State militants back with the help of US-led airstrikes.

Major General Thamir al-Hussaini said the militarized Federal Police advanced in the face of snipers, antitank missiles, and suicide car bombs, describing ‘‘fierce’’ clashes in which Iraqi forces suffered casualties, without providing exact numbers.

Just a few miles from the front, wounded troops streamed into field hospitals, many of them suffering from shrapnel wounds. One soldier had lost the lower part of his leg in an explosion.

Frontline medics at one field hospital said they had received more than 20 casualties by midday. The medics spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations as Iraq’s military does not release casualty information.

US-led airstrikes disabled all of Mosul’s bridges spanning the Tigris River last year in a bid to isolate the militants in the western half of the city. Iraq declared eastern Mosul ‘‘fully liberated’’ last month but the militants have carried out attacks there since then.

Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV aired live footage from the western Gawsaq neighborhood, showing Iraqi troops in armored vehicles and Humvees rolling through dusty streets as gunfire rattled. Thick black smoke could be seen billowing up after airstrikes.

Iraqi forces took Mosul’s international airport and a sprawling military base next to it last week before pushing into Mamun, the first neighborhood in the western half of the city after the airport.

Western Mosul is the last significant urban area the Islamic State holds in Iraq.

The city fell to ISIS in the summer of 2014, along with large swaths of northern and western Iraq. The eastern half of Mosul was declared liberated in January, three months after the coalition launched its offensive to recapture the city.

American artillery as well as fighter jets are playing an essential role in softening the opposition from the Islamic State.

Howitzers near Hamam al-Alil, a town on the Tigris River, are just part of the United States military’s contribution to the offensive.

At Qayyarah Airfield West, an Iraqi base 40 miles south of Mosul, a US Army task force has been firing satellite-guided rockets at targets. Apache attack helicopters, equipped with Hellfire missiles, have carried out missions from the airfield.

This is in addition to the airstrikes carried out by US and allied warplanes and drones.

In a separate development Monday, Albania’s defense minister said his country plans to send an infantry platoon to become part of the anti-ISIS coalition in Iraq.

Mimi Kodheli told a parliamentary committee that after a request from the United States, they had agreed to send a unit with about 30 infantry troops for military operations in Iraq.

The Iraqi government must agree before the Albanian government will seek parliamentary approval, she said, as ‘‘we are not speaking as being part of NATO, but of a volunteer global coalition.’’

Albania has been in Iraq before with army units protecting or accompanying military or public objects but not with a ground-operational platoon.

Albania, a NATO member since 2009, takes part in international peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Mali, and the Aegean Sea.