Iraq says Tal Afar ‘fully liberated’ from IS

BAGHDAD — The northern town of Tal Afar has been “fully liberated” from the Islamic State group, Iraq’s prime minister said Thursday, further shrinking the territory controlled by the extremists who overran nearly a third of the country three years ago.

The militants have suffered a series of major defeats in recent months, including the loss of Mosul, the second-largest city, in July. Iraqi troops “eliminated and smashed” the militant group in al-Ayadia district, northwest of Tal Afar, where they had fled last week, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a statement.

“To Daesh criminals we say: Wherever you are we will come to liberate and you have to choose only death or surrender,” al-Abadi added, using an Arabic acronym for the group.

With the fall of Tal Afar, all of Ninevah province is “in the hands of our brave troops,” he said. The ethnically mixed province was the first to fall to the Islamic State when its militants swept across large parts of Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014.

The group still controls a large area of eastern Syria, along the border with Iraq, as well as parts of Raqqa, the capital of the group’s self-styled caliphate, where it is battling U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian forces.

Iraqi officials often declare areas liberated before the fighting has completely ended, and the militants have been known to carry out surprise counterattacks. The Tal Afar operation began nearly two weeks ago.

The announcement on Tal Afar came a day after Jordan and Iraq reopened their only border crossing after a two-year closure. They were able to reopen it after Iraqi forces drove IS from most of the vast Anbar province in western Iraq.

Al-Abadi vowed to retake all areas still under IS control. In Iraq, they are now largely confined to the northern town of Hawija and a handful of others — Qaim, Rawa and Ana — near the Syrian border.