Iraqi air force lays groundwork for offensive to retake Tal Afar from ISIL
Push for strategic city near borders with Turkey and Syria will thwart extremist threat to Mosul
The Iraqi air force began bombing Tal Afar yesterday in preparation for a ground assault as the Pentagon confirmed the US-led coalition was supporting the Iraqi government’s push to drive ISIL out of the city, despite Turkey’s objections.
“Ground attacks will begin when the air campaign is over,” said Mohammed Al Khodari, the defence ministry’s spokesman. The air campaign will be carried out with American help, the Pentagon confirmed.
The anti-ISIL coaltion led by the US “will support the government of Iraq and its forces in the plan to liberate Tal Afar and other areas of Iraq from ISIL control”, Mr Al Khodari said.
Ground forces have begun massing around Tal Afar, said the Iraqi military spokesman, Brig Gen Yahya Rasool. “Preparations are under way. There are strikes aimed at wearing them down and keeping them busy, targeting their command and control centres, their depots. These strikes have been going on for some time.”
But the defence ministry insisted the battle had not yet begun. “We are awaiting orders from the commander in chief of the armed forces to announce zero hour,” it said on Twitter.
Plans to retake Tal Afar were announced on Monday by federal police chief Lt Gen Raed Shakir Jawdat, who said “armoured and elite units” were heading for the town. The unspecified number of units were “regrouping in combat positions in preparation for the next battle”, he said.
Located about 60 kilometres from Mosul and Iraq’s borders with Turkey and Syria, Tal Afar has been under ISIL control since mid-2014 and the early stages of the operation to retake it have been under way since last week, as security forces began liberating nearby areas.
Tal Afar holds strategic importance for the US, according to Aaron Stein, a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Centre for the Middle East.
“Tal Afar is important because ISIL could project power from the city into Mosul again and destabilise it,” he said. It was for that reason that “the US chose to go after Tal Afar first, rather than other ISIL strongholds, like Hawija”.
The push into the Iraqi city ignores Turkey’s objections over the participation of Shiite militias in the offensive.
The majority of the population of Tal Afar, whether Shiite or Sunni, is ethnically Turkmen. While Tal Afar has been surrounded by Shiite militias since the beginning of the battle to retake Mosul, Ankara has long opposed involving them in the liberation of the town and its environs on the grounds that ISIL is likely to inflict terrible reprisals on the Turkmen population and thus ignite further sectarian divisions.
Turkey, with some elements in the Iraqi government, has raised the same concerns about the Shiite militias, who have been accused of torture and killings in Sunni-majority cities.
“Turkey has long sought to play a role in Tal Afar, largely through the support of Sunni Turkmen factions,” Mr Stein said. “This support is used as a hedge against the influence of Shiite ethnic militias, which include Arab and Turkmens, and for Ankara to be able to project power along the road connecting Sinjar and Tal Afar to Mosul. They have resorted to threats to try and compel the US to do something [in their favour], but it isn’t working.”
Iraqi authorities have long made it known that Tal Afar would be their next target in the war against ISIL.
“Tal Afar is a strategic town, it is the last town before the Syrian border, and was used as a transit route for ISIL from cities like Raqqa and Deir Ez Zour in Syria, to Iraq,” said Mohamed Hineidi, a senior analyst at the Delma Institute in Abu Dhabi. “ISIL will put up a fight to maintain a presence in Iraq – giving it the chance of conducting attacks and bombings in Baghdad, and other areas.”
The Iraqi prime minister, Haidar Al Abadi, confirmed that Hashd Al Shaabi, the Shiite popular mobilisation unit, “will be actively engaged in the battle”.
The militia has already began carrying out military operations to the east of Tal Afar.
“Hashed Al Shaabi commanders met army and police commanders on Saturday to decide on the plan to free Tal Afar,” said the militia spokesman, Ahmed Al Assadi.
ISIL’s self-proclaimed caliphate effectively collapsed last month, when US-backed Iraqi forces completed the recapture of Mosul, the militants’ capital in northern Iraq, after a ninemonth campaign.
“Mosul is Iraq’s second largest city – its significance and symbolism to ISIL dwarfs that of Tal Afar. The fighting in Tal Afar, however, will not be different tactically, but with Mosul, there was little chance of ISIL withdrawing, due to Mosul’s significance,” Mr Hineidi said.
“With Tal Afar however, the group might withdraw to reinforce cities like Deir Ez Zour in Syria, which are large urban centres.”
Mr Al Abadi is expected to announce the launch of the ground assault but there are no indications on when it will start.
The Iraqi prime minister will announce the ground assault but there are no indications on when it will start