Iraqi forces defeat IS in battle for Tal Afar
IRAQ declared yesterday that its forces had retaken the northern city of Tal Afar and the surrounding region in another major victory over Islamic State.
Tal Afar was the last major population centre in northern Iraq still under jihadist control and its loss deprives IS of what was once a key supply hub between its territory in Syria and Iraq.
“Our happiness is complete, victory has arrived and the province of Nineveh is now entirely in the hands of our forces,” Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said.
After 12 days of fighting, Abadi announced that Tal Afar had “regained its place in the national territory”.
The full recapture of Nineveh province comes weeks after Iraqi forces backed by a US-led coalition ousted IS from its capital Mosul, three years after the jihadists declared a self-styled “caliphate” straddling Iraq and war-torn Syria.
IS has lost much of the territory it controlled in the two countries and thousands of its fighters have been killed since 2014, when the coalition was set up to defeat the group. IS fighters in Iraq now control only the city of Hawija and a few areas in the desert along the border with Syria.
“The liberation of this city, and the remainder of Nineveh province, will essentially end ISIS’s military presence in northern Iraq,” the deputy commander of the US-led coalition, British Major General Rupert Jones, said.
Iraqi authorities are now expected to launch a new offensive against IS in their stronghold of Hawija, a town in Kirkuk province around 300 kilometres north of Baghdad.