Forces say Daesh retreating deep into desert

BAGHDAD: Iraqi forces said Friday that Daesh group ighters are withdrawing deep into the desert to escape an offensive aimed at a inal defeat of the extremists.

Daesh has already been driven out of all of the towns it once held, but Prime Minister Haider Al-abadi has said he will not proclaim victory until the extremists have been cleared from the western desert bordering Syria.

The Hashed Al-shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) paramilitary force said its ighters had taken control of 77 villages and hamlets since the launch of the offensive on Thursday morning.

It said ive extremists had been killed south of the ancient desert city of Hatra, but otherwise Daesh had put up little resistance.

The Hashed said that its ighters, who are mainly recruited from militias, over- ran an airield in the same area, where they discovered underground warehouses used by the jihadists. Air support for the offensive, which also involves the army and federal police, has so far been provided exclusively by the Iraqi air force.

The Us-led coalition, which has provided air support for other offensives against Daesh in Iraq, said it carried out no strikes on Thursday.

“We will provide strikes if we know that there is an Daesh cell, or tunnels, or something there,” coalition spokesman US Colonel Ryan Dillon told AFP.

“If the requests are not coming, we won’ t do a strike ... it’ s supply and demand ,” he said.

“And when you’re in such a vast wide open desert area... there’s less of a requirement for precision-guided missiles,” unlike in urban areas.

At its peak in 2014, Daesh ruled over seven million people in a territory as large as Italy encompassing large parts of Syria and nearly a third of Iraq.

It is now being lushed out of its last desert hideouts in Iraq and under attack by Russian-backed government forces and Us-backed Kurdish-led ighters in its last pockets of control in Syria.

A top UN oficial has called on the Iraqi government to speed up investigations into allegations of human rights violations committed by security forces during the ight against the Daesh group and to make the results of those probes public.

Agnes Callamard, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial Summary or Arbitrary Executions, says Iraq’s new “transition phase” presents“both opportunities and challenges” Ca llama rd says the government should“respond effectively and impartially to allegations of violations in order to build and strengthen conidence.”