IRAQI FORCES BEGIN PUSH ON ON ISIL’S LAST STRONGHOLD
▶ Operation in Ninevah province comes as the US-led battle against extremists enters its fourth year
Iraqi forces and Shiite militias yesterday began storming ISIL’s last stronghold in the country, Nineveh.
The Iraqi air force launched air raids against the group in Tal Afar, west of Mosul.
The US state department announced yesterday that Iraqi forces had shot down two drones belonging to ISIL.
It said soldiers had also killed three fighters who were fleeing from Tal Afar.
Located about 60 kilometres from Mosul and the borders with Turkey and Syria, Tal Afar has been under the extremists’ control since mid-2014.
Some elements in the Iraqi government and Turkey have raised concerns about Shiite militias – who were accused of torture and killings in Sunni cities – taking part in the operation.
Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi confirmed that the Hashed Al Shaabi, the Shiite popular mobilisation unit, “will be actively engaged in the battle”.
The militias have already began carrying out military operations to the east of Tal Afar.
While the town has been surrounded by Shiite militias since the start of the battle to retake Mosul, Turkey has long opposed involving them in the liberation of the town and its environs.,
Ankara fears that ISIL is likely to inflict terrible reprisals on the Turkmen population and thus ignite further sectarian divisions.
Victory in the town, where most of the population – Shiite and Sunni – is ethnically Turkmen, would mean the loss of one of its most important strongholds for ISIL.
The US department of defence announced on Sunday that Operation Inherent Resolve, aimed at combating ISIL in Iraq and Syria, launched two air strikes on ISIL’s tactical units near Tal Afar.
The strikes destroyed two “vehicle-borne bomb facilities” and damaged a supply route.
Meanwhile, a powerful Iraqi Shiite militia yesterday said that at least 40 of its fighters were killed in an attack on Monday across the border in Syria.
The militia blamed the USled coalition for the assault but ISIL claimed its fighters had targeted them.
The deputy head of the Shiite force, known as Kattaib Sayeed Al Shuhadaa, accused American forces of carrying out the assault early on Monday
In Baghdad, the spokesman of the US-led coalition, Col Ryan Dillon, dismissed the allegation, tweeting, “No coalition air strikes took place in the area at the time”.
Ahmed Al Maksousi, deputy leader of Kattaib Sayeed Al Shuhadaa, said they had been hit by artillery fire in Syria’s Jamouna area, about 12 kilometres from the Iraqi border.
Mr Al Maksousi said the attack was launched from somewhere near Mosul, recently recaptured by Iraqi forces from ISIL, and was followed by an on-the-ground assault.
Forty militiamen were killed and at least 30 wounded, he said.
“This act will not go unpunished,” Mr Al Maksousi vowed.
The offensive on Tal Afar comes as the US-led coalition campaign to destroy ISIL in Iraq and Syria entered its fourth year yesterday, and the Pentagon believes ISIL’s defeat is inevitable.
At the height of their advance, the extremists held about 104,000 square kilometres of territory and even threatened Baghdad.
Many Iraqi military units had collapsed in disarray as the ISIL fighters swept through the country.
“They had eight million people who were being ruthlessly held captive by their rule and living in misery, many forced into refugee status and depravity,” said Pentagon spokesman Capt Jeff Davis.
In the three years since the campaign began, 70 per cent of the territory ISIL once held in Iraq has been recaptured, and 50 per cent in Syria.
“Not one inch of that territory that we have liberated has been retaken by ISIL,” Capt Davis said.
“ISIL is facing its inevitable defeat. We will win and they will lose.”