Hindustani78
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A car bomb explodes next to Iraqi special forces armored vehicles as they advance towards Islamic State held territory in Mosul, Iraq.
Iraq's war against IS terrorism | Updates and Discussions
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Hindustani78
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http://indianexpress.com/article/wo...ribal-fighters-police-south-of-mosul-4384137/
The tribal fighters and police were gunned down at two fake checkpoints set up by the insurgents in Shirqat, a Sunni town between Mosul and Baghdad, they said.
By: Reuters | Tikrit | Published:November 19, 2016 4:21 pm
Islamic State killed seven Sunni tribal fighters who support the Iraqi government and five policemen on Saturday in a town south of Mosul, the insurgents’ last major city stronghold in Iraq, local security sources said. The tribal fighters and police were gunned down at two fake checkpoints set up by the insurgents in Shirqat, a Sunni town between Mosul and Baghdad, they said.
Islamic State has escalated attacks on forces and officials opposed to its rule as it fights off a military campaign to retake Mosul, the largest city in the “caliphate” it declared in 2014 over parts of Iraq and Syria. The hardline Sunni group claimed an attack on a Sunni wedding west of Baghdad that killed at least 12 people on Thursday. It staged attacks and bombings over the past weeks in the Sunni towns of Falluja and Rutba, also west of the capital.
Iraqi armed forces began their offensive on Mosul on October 17, with air and ground support from a US-led coalition. Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Sunni tribes and Iranian-backed Shi’ite paramilitary forces are also taking part.
The tribal fighters and police were gunned down at two fake checkpoints set up by the insurgents in Shirqat, a Sunni town between Mosul and Baghdad, they said.
By: Reuters | Tikrit | Published:November 19, 2016 4:21 pm
Islamic State killed seven Sunni tribal fighters who support the Iraqi government and five policemen on Saturday in a town south of Mosul, the insurgents’ last major city stronghold in Iraq, local security sources said. The tribal fighters and police were gunned down at two fake checkpoints set up by the insurgents in Shirqat, a Sunni town between Mosul and Baghdad, they said.
Islamic State has escalated attacks on forces and officials opposed to its rule as it fights off a military campaign to retake Mosul, the largest city in the “caliphate” it declared in 2014 over parts of Iraq and Syria. The hardline Sunni group claimed an attack on a Sunni wedding west of Baghdad that killed at least 12 people on Thursday. It staged attacks and bombings over the past weeks in the Sunni towns of Falluja and Rutba, also west of the capital.
Iraqi armed forces began their offensive on Mosul on October 17, with air and ground support from a US-led coalition. Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Sunni tribes and Iranian-backed Shi’ite paramilitary forces are also taking part.
Alshawi1234
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PMF forces are within fire range of Tel Afar. Engineering team have started building trenches to isolate the city and prevent IS escape/ attacks.
Hindustani78
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Reuters / Friday, November 18, 2016
Shi'ite fighters fire artillery towards Islamic State militants during a battle with Islamic State militants on the outskirt of Tal Afar west of Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Stringer
Reuters / Friday, November 18, 2016
Shi'ite fighters try to fix a rocket launcher base during a battle with Islamic State militants on the outskirt of Tal Afar west of Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Stringer
Reuters / Friday, November 18, 2016
An Iraqi air force helicopter fires missiles during a battle with Islamic State militants at the airport of Tal Afar west of Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
Reuters / Friday, November 18, 2016
Shi'ite fighters fire a rocket towards Islamic State militants during a battle with Islamic State militants on the outskirt of Tal Afar west of Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Stringer
Reuters / Friday, November 18, 2016
A member of Shi'ite fighters fires a RPG towards Islamic State militants during a battle with Islamic State militants on the outskirt of Tal Afar west of Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Stringer
Reuters / Friday, November 18, 2016
People displaced by fighting in and around Mosul bed down in a trench marking the boundary of Kurdish territory near Bashiqa, Iraq. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
Reuters / Friday, November 18, 2016
A destroyed section of the Jisr al Hurriyah Bridge crossing the Tigris River is seen in Mosul, Iraq, in this satellite image. Courtesy of Stratfor/Airbus/Handout via REUTERS
Shi'ite fighters fire artillery towards Islamic State militants during a battle with Islamic State militants on the outskirt of Tal Afar west of Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Stringer
Reuters / Friday, November 18, 2016
Shi'ite fighters try to fix a rocket launcher base during a battle with Islamic State militants on the outskirt of Tal Afar west of Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Stringer
Reuters / Friday, November 18, 2016
An Iraqi air force helicopter fires missiles during a battle with Islamic State militants at the airport of Tal Afar west of Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
Reuters / Friday, November 18, 2016
Shi'ite fighters fire a rocket towards Islamic State militants during a battle with Islamic State militants on the outskirt of Tal Afar west of Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Stringer
Reuters / Friday, November 18, 2016
A member of Shi'ite fighters fires a RPG towards Islamic State militants during a battle with Islamic State militants on the outskirt of Tal Afar west of Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Stringer
Reuters / Friday, November 18, 2016
People displaced by fighting in and around Mosul bed down in a trench marking the boundary of Kurdish territory near Bashiqa, Iraq. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
Reuters / Friday, November 18, 2016
A destroyed section of the Jisr al Hurriyah Bridge crossing the Tigris River is seen in Mosul, Iraq, in this satellite image. Courtesy of Stratfor/Airbus/Handout via REUTERS
Alshawi1234
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PMF have started phase 4 of the Tel Afar ops. Aim is to reach Sinjar and seal the gap towards the Syrian border.
This will create a full 360 degree siege against IS in Nineveh.
So far 4 villages liberated, two more to are on the verge of being stormed. 4 IS VBIED's destroyed.
Iraqi forces control about 30% of the left side of Mosul.
Iraq's federal police advances in the southern front and is just a few KM from mosul.
This will create a full 360 degree siege against IS in Nineveh.
So far 4 villages liberated, two more to are on the verge of being stormed. 4 IS VBIED's destroyed.
Iraqi forces control about 30% of the left side of Mosul.
Iraq's federal police advances in the southern front and is just a few KM from mosul.
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Hindustani78
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-idUSKBN13H0Z1
By Saif Hameed and Stephanie Nebehay | BAGHDAD/GENEVA
U.S. forces backing an Iraqi army campaign against Islamic State in Mosul carried out an air strike on a bridge spanning the Tigris river, restricting militant movements between western and eastern parts of the city, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.
U.S.-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service forces are pushing deeper into east Mosul, the last major city controlled by the Sunni hard-line group in Iraq, while army and police units, Shi'ite militias and Kurdish fighters surround it to the west, south and north.
Militants have steadily retreated into Mosul from outlying areas. The army's early advances have slowed as militants dig in, using the more than 1 million civilians inside the city as a shield, moving through tunnels, and hitting troops with suicide bombers, snipers and mortar fire.
Five bridges span the Tigris that runs through Mosul. They have all been mined and boobytrapped by militants who took over the city two years ago as they swept through northern Iraq and declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria.
Despite planting the mines, Islamic State fighters have so far been able to continue using those bridges which have not yet been destroyed by air strikes.
Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said on Tuesday an air strike hit the number four bridge, the southernmost, in the past 48 hours.
"This effort impedes Daesh's freedom of movement in Mosul. It inhibits their ability to resupply or reinforce their fighters throughout the city," he said using an Arabic acronym for the militant group.
A month ago, a U.S. air strike destroyed the No. 2 bridge in the center of the city and two weeks later another strike took out the No. 5 bridge to the north.
The United Nations' International Organisation for Migration expressed concern that the destruction of the bridges could obstruct the evacuation of civilians.
"That is a concern of IOM because this is going to leave hundreds of thousands without a quick way out of the combat," spokesman Joel Millman told reporters in Geneva.
COMMANDERS CAPTURED
The battle for Mosul, launched five weeks ago, is turning into the largest military campaign in more than a decade of conflict in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
The Iraqi military estimates around 5,000 Islamic State fighters are in Mosul. A 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi government forces, Kurdish fighters and Shi'ite paramilitary units is surrounding the city.
Mosul's capture would be a major step towards dismantling the caliphate, and Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, believed to have withdrawn to a remote area near the Syrian border, has told his fighters to stay and fight to the end.
Counter terrorism units and an army armored division are the only forces to have breached the city limits from the eastern side. Other army and federal police units have yet to enter the northern and the southern sides.
A Kurdish security source said on Tuesday four Islamic State commanders were captured in a U.S. special operation near Baaj, a town close to the Syrian border. Baghdadi was not among them. The coalition did not confirm the operation.
Islamic State said it launched an attack on the north-western front of Mosul, seizing a duty free zone and oil depots located a dozen kilometers from the city limits. The army did not confirm the claim.
Iranian-backed militias have captured the Tal Afar air base, west of Mosul, part of their campaign to choke off the route between the Syrian and Iraqi parts of the caliphate Islamic State declared in 2014.
The number of people displaced by the fighting in and around Mosul has slightly decreased, an indication that some people have began returning home in places retaken by government forces, according to the IOM.
"68,112 displaced is actually a downtick from couple of days ago," said Millman. It's "worth noting because it indicates that some people are already starting to return to safe areas in the region."
The number of registered displaced people was over 68,500 on Monday. The figure does not include the thousands of people rounded up in villages around Mosul and forced to accompany Islamic State fighters to cover their retreat towards the city.
An Iranian-backed Shi'ite group taking part in the offensive denied a Human Rights Watch report that it detained and beat 10 shepherds, including a boy, from a village near Mosul on November 3.
Human Rights Watch on Tuesday said the League of the Righteous, or Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, also stole the village's entire flock of sheep.
"These reports are completely wrong, they aim to stall the operation" against Islamic State, said Asa'ib's military spokesman Jawad al-Talabawi.
The Iraqi government has not published an overall death toll for the offensive, whether among military or civilians. The warring sides claim to have killed thousands in enemy ranks.
(Writing by Patrick Markey and Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Dominic Evans)
By Saif Hameed and Stephanie Nebehay | BAGHDAD/GENEVA
U.S. forces backing an Iraqi army campaign against Islamic State in Mosul carried out an air strike on a bridge spanning the Tigris river, restricting militant movements between western and eastern parts of the city, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.
U.S.-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service forces are pushing deeper into east Mosul, the last major city controlled by the Sunni hard-line group in Iraq, while army and police units, Shi'ite militias and Kurdish fighters surround it to the west, south and north.
Militants have steadily retreated into Mosul from outlying areas. The army's early advances have slowed as militants dig in, using the more than 1 million civilians inside the city as a shield, moving through tunnels, and hitting troops with suicide bombers, snipers and mortar fire.
Five bridges span the Tigris that runs through Mosul. They have all been mined and boobytrapped by militants who took over the city two years ago as they swept through northern Iraq and declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria.
Despite planting the mines, Islamic State fighters have so far been able to continue using those bridges which have not yet been destroyed by air strikes.
Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said on Tuesday an air strike hit the number four bridge, the southernmost, in the past 48 hours.
"This effort impedes Daesh's freedom of movement in Mosul. It inhibits their ability to resupply or reinforce their fighters throughout the city," he said using an Arabic acronym for the militant group.
A month ago, a U.S. air strike destroyed the No. 2 bridge in the center of the city and two weeks later another strike took out the No. 5 bridge to the north.
The United Nations' International Organisation for Migration expressed concern that the destruction of the bridges could obstruct the evacuation of civilians.
"That is a concern of IOM because this is going to leave hundreds of thousands without a quick way out of the combat," spokesman Joel Millman told reporters in Geneva.
COMMANDERS CAPTURED
The battle for Mosul, launched five weeks ago, is turning into the largest military campaign in more than a decade of conflict in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
The Iraqi military estimates around 5,000 Islamic State fighters are in Mosul. A 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi government forces, Kurdish fighters and Shi'ite paramilitary units is surrounding the city.
Mosul's capture would be a major step towards dismantling the caliphate, and Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, believed to have withdrawn to a remote area near the Syrian border, has told his fighters to stay and fight to the end.
Counter terrorism units and an army armored division are the only forces to have breached the city limits from the eastern side. Other army and federal police units have yet to enter the northern and the southern sides.
A Kurdish security source said on Tuesday four Islamic State commanders were captured in a U.S. special operation near Baaj, a town close to the Syrian border. Baghdadi was not among them. The coalition did not confirm the operation.
Islamic State said it launched an attack on the north-western front of Mosul, seizing a duty free zone and oil depots located a dozen kilometers from the city limits. The army did not confirm the claim.
Iranian-backed militias have captured the Tal Afar air base, west of Mosul, part of their campaign to choke off the route between the Syrian and Iraqi parts of the caliphate Islamic State declared in 2014.
The number of people displaced by the fighting in and around Mosul has slightly decreased, an indication that some people have began returning home in places retaken by government forces, according to the IOM.
"68,112 displaced is actually a downtick from couple of days ago," said Millman. It's "worth noting because it indicates that some people are already starting to return to safe areas in the region."
The number of registered displaced people was over 68,500 on Monday. The figure does not include the thousands of people rounded up in villages around Mosul and forced to accompany Islamic State fighters to cover their retreat towards the city.
An Iranian-backed Shi'ite group taking part in the offensive denied a Human Rights Watch report that it detained and beat 10 shepherds, including a boy, from a village near Mosul on November 3.
Human Rights Watch on Tuesday said the League of the Righteous, or Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, also stole the village's entire flock of sheep.
"These reports are completely wrong, they aim to stall the operation" against Islamic State, said Asa'ib's military spokesman Jawad al-Talabawi.
The Iraqi government has not published an overall death toll for the offensive, whether among military or civilians. The warring sides claim to have killed thousands in enemy ranks.
(Writing by Patrick Markey and Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Dominic Evans)
Info from DoD about the ballistic missile program
Missiles in service/in development. They should consider relaunching this program as part of the military industry plan they're working on.
Source: http://www.dod.gov/pubs/prolif/me_na.html
http://fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/missile/badr-2000.htm
Missiles in service/in development. They should consider relaunching this program as part of the military industry plan they're working on.
Source: http://www.dod.gov/pubs/prolif/me_na.html
http://fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/missile/badr-2000.htm
EgyptianAmerican
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They should flay those Murderous cunts alive especially the snipers. The scum don't deserve anything else.
Hindustani78
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Oil workers try to extinguish burning oil fields in Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq.
BAGHDAD — Iraq's parliament plans to vote Nov. 26 on a proposal to integrate the militias that operate under the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). The proposal follows a July 27 order by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to make the PMU militias a united governmental force under his direct supervision.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/11/pmu-iraq-west-human-rights.html#ixzz4Qr0qHgDc
Also Iraq started local production of the Belarusian ATGM Shershen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shershen
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/11/pmu-iraq-west-human-rights.html#ixzz4Qr0qHgDc
Also Iraq started local production of the Belarusian ATGM Shershen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shershen
Alshawi1234
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Mosul and Tel afar are now totally besieged after the PMF broke IS defence and reached the Kurdish controlled territories.
All routes to syria are now completely cut off. IS is collapsing at an unpresedented rate. Tel Afar is now surrounded from three fronts. So far the battle is unpredictable. PMF forces make quick and sudden moves. Next step would be either expand the buffer zone, or attack Tel Afar.
All routes to syria are now completely cut off. IS is collapsing at an unpresedented rate. Tel Afar is now surrounded from three fronts. So far the battle is unpredictable. PMF forces make quick and sudden moves. Next step would be either expand the buffer zone, or attack Tel Afar.
The IS pests are using the tactic of deploying snipers to shoot civillians (no matter if they're kids or adults) fleeing or moving to get food, this way they keep them as human shields. Not a surprise however given that this group targets Baghdad's civillians on a weekly basis.
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Hindustani78
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Iraqi special forces soldiers flash victory signs, as they arrive to relieve soldiers returning from the battlefield, in the Al-Samah front line neighborhood, in Mosul, Iraq.
Hindustani78
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Shi'ite fighters fire a rocket towards Islamic State militants during a battle with Islamic State militants at the airport of Tal Afar west of Mosul, Iraq November 18, 2016. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
Syrian Kurdish fighters ride a military vehicle in the town of Bashiqa, after it was recaptured from the Islamic State, east of Mosul, Iraq, November 12, 2016. Picture taken November 12, 2016. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-idUSKBN13J0XC
By Isabel Coles and Saif Hameed | ERBIL/BAGHDAD, Iraq
Iraqi Kurdish and Shi'ite forces agreed to coordinate movements after cutting off Mosul from the rest of the territory held by Islamic State in western Iraq and Syria in support of a U.S-backed offensive to capture the city, U.S. and Iraqi officials said on Thursday.
The agreement was reached at meeting on Wednesday between commanders of Kurdish Peshmerga forces deployed in Sinjar, west of Mosul, and Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Iranian-backed Badr Organisation, the biggest component of the mostly Shi'ite paramilitary coalition known as Popular Mobilisation.
Popular mobilization, or Hashid Shaabi, deployed southwest of Mosul to complete the encirclement of Islamic State's last major city stronghold in Iraq.
Mosul was already ringed to the north, south and east by Iraqi government forces and the Peshmerga. Iraq's U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Service unit breached Islamic State defenses in east Mosul at the end of October and is fighting to expand its foothold there.
The offensive started on Oct. 17 with air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition. It is turning into the most complex campaign in Iraq since the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, and empowered the nation's Shi'ite majority.
Al-Amiri "came in order to coordinate with us," said Mahma Xelil, the mayor of Sinjar, a city where Islamic State committed its worst atrocities after taking over the region two years ago, killing and enslaving thousands from the Yazidi minority.
Controlling the road will make it easier for the Iraqi army to enter Tal Afar, Xelil said. "There must be cooperation between us to prevent ISIS from moving their equipment and their fighters," he added, referring to Islamic State.
Sinjar was recaptured a year ago by the Peshmerga, forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government of northern Iraq. It lies west of Tal Afar, another stronghold of Islamic State, 60 km (40 miles) west of Mosul.
"The joining of these forces greatly reduces the freedom of movement of ISIL insurgents in and out of Mosul," said Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, referring to Islamic State. "They have already lost the effective ability to move in large numbers, but now this has been made more difficult for them."
Another prominent leader of the Popular Mobilisation units, Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, said on Wednesday the Shi'ite forces had linked up with the Peshmerga near Sinjar, completing the encirclement of a region that extends from Mosul and Tal Afar.
Mohandes said Popular Mobilisation would try next to separate Mosul from Tal Afar, which lies on the route between Mosul and Raqqa, the main city of the militant group's self-styled "caliphate" in Syria..
THOUSANDS FLEEING
Thousands of civilians fled Tal Afar as Popular Mobilisation closed in on the town mostly populated by ethnic Turkmen.
The exodus is worrying humanitarian organizations as some of the civilians are heading into insurgent territory, where aid cannot be sent to them, provincial officials said on Wednesday.
Those fleeing Tal Afar are Sunnis, who are in a majority in Nineveh province in and around Mosul. Tal Afar also had a Shi'ite community, which fled in 2014 when the Sunnis of Islamic State swept through the region.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi tried to allay fears of ethnic and sectarian killings in Tal Afar, saying any force sent to recapture it would reflect the city's diversity.
The Iraqi military estimates there are 5,000 to 6,000 insurgents in Mosul facing a 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi government units, Kurdish peshmerga and Shi'ite militias.
Mosul's capture is seen as crucial toward dismantling the caliphate, and Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, believed to have withdrawn to a remote area near the Syrian border, has told his fighters there can be no retreat.
(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Patrick Markey and Giles Elgood)
*************
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-blast-idUSKBN13J1DA
A suicide bomber detonated his car bomb at a gas station in al-Hilla city, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 12 civilians and wounding 10 more, police and medical sources say.
The attack took place at gas station with an adjacent restaurant used by Iranian pilgrims to rest on their way back from the Arbaeen pilgrimage in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala.
No side has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the ultra-hardline Islamic State group has mounted similar attacks in areas outside their control in an attempt to undermine the military campaign in Mosul, the group's last remaining city in Iraq.
(Reporting by Saif Hameed; Editing by Dominic Evans)
Syrian Kurdish fighters ride a military vehicle in the town of Bashiqa, after it was recaptured from the Islamic State, east of Mosul, Iraq, November 12, 2016. Picture taken November 12, 2016. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-idUSKBN13J0XC
By Isabel Coles and Saif Hameed | ERBIL/BAGHDAD, Iraq
Iraqi Kurdish and Shi'ite forces agreed to coordinate movements after cutting off Mosul from the rest of the territory held by Islamic State in western Iraq and Syria in support of a U.S-backed offensive to capture the city, U.S. and Iraqi officials said on Thursday.
The agreement was reached at meeting on Wednesday between commanders of Kurdish Peshmerga forces deployed in Sinjar, west of Mosul, and Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Iranian-backed Badr Organisation, the biggest component of the mostly Shi'ite paramilitary coalition known as Popular Mobilisation.
Popular mobilization, or Hashid Shaabi, deployed southwest of Mosul to complete the encirclement of Islamic State's last major city stronghold in Iraq.
Mosul was already ringed to the north, south and east by Iraqi government forces and the Peshmerga. Iraq's U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Service unit breached Islamic State defenses in east Mosul at the end of October and is fighting to expand its foothold there.
The offensive started on Oct. 17 with air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition. It is turning into the most complex campaign in Iraq since the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, and empowered the nation's Shi'ite majority.
Al-Amiri "came in order to coordinate with us," said Mahma Xelil, the mayor of Sinjar, a city where Islamic State committed its worst atrocities after taking over the region two years ago, killing and enslaving thousands from the Yazidi minority.
Controlling the road will make it easier for the Iraqi army to enter Tal Afar, Xelil said. "There must be cooperation between us to prevent ISIS from moving their equipment and their fighters," he added, referring to Islamic State.
Sinjar was recaptured a year ago by the Peshmerga, forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government of northern Iraq. It lies west of Tal Afar, another stronghold of Islamic State, 60 km (40 miles) west of Mosul.
"The joining of these forces greatly reduces the freedom of movement of ISIL insurgents in and out of Mosul," said Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, referring to Islamic State. "They have already lost the effective ability to move in large numbers, but now this has been made more difficult for them."
Another prominent leader of the Popular Mobilisation units, Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, said on Wednesday the Shi'ite forces had linked up with the Peshmerga near Sinjar, completing the encirclement of a region that extends from Mosul and Tal Afar.
Mohandes said Popular Mobilisation would try next to separate Mosul from Tal Afar, which lies on the route between Mosul and Raqqa, the main city of the militant group's self-styled "caliphate" in Syria..
THOUSANDS FLEEING
Thousands of civilians fled Tal Afar as Popular Mobilisation closed in on the town mostly populated by ethnic Turkmen.
The exodus is worrying humanitarian organizations as some of the civilians are heading into insurgent territory, where aid cannot be sent to them, provincial officials said on Wednesday.
Those fleeing Tal Afar are Sunnis, who are in a majority in Nineveh province in and around Mosul. Tal Afar also had a Shi'ite community, which fled in 2014 when the Sunnis of Islamic State swept through the region.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi tried to allay fears of ethnic and sectarian killings in Tal Afar, saying any force sent to recapture it would reflect the city's diversity.
The Iraqi military estimates there are 5,000 to 6,000 insurgents in Mosul facing a 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi government units, Kurdish peshmerga and Shi'ite militias.
Mosul's capture is seen as crucial toward dismantling the caliphate, and Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, believed to have withdrawn to a remote area near the Syrian border, has told his fighters there can be no retreat.
(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Patrick Markey and Giles Elgood)
*************
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-blast-idUSKBN13J1DA
A suicide bomber detonated his car bomb at a gas station in al-Hilla city, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 12 civilians and wounding 10 more, police and medical sources say.
The attack took place at gas station with an adjacent restaurant used by Iranian pilgrims to rest on their way back from the Arbaeen pilgrimage in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala.
No side has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the ultra-hardline Islamic State group has mounted similar attacks in areas outside their control in an attempt to undermine the military campaign in Mosul, the group's last remaining city in Iraq.
(Reporting by Saif Hameed; Editing by Dominic Evans)
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