Iraqi paramilitary forces launched an operation on Saturday to retake Tal Afar from the Islamic State, opening a new front in the nearly two-week-old offensive to recapture Mosul.
Forces from the Hashed al-Shaabi, a paramilitary umbrella organisation dominated by Iran-backed Shia militias, have largely been on the sidelines since the launch of the Mosul operation.
And the western approach to Mosul, a route on which Tal Afar is located, is the only one where ground forces, which have advanced on the city from the north, east and south, are not yet deployed.
“The operation aims to cut supplies between Mosul and Raqa and tighten the siege of (the IS) in Mosul and liberate Tal Afar,” Hashed spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi told AFP, referring to the IS’s main strongholds in Iraq and Syria.
Mr. Assadi said the operation was launched from the Sin al-Dhaban area south of Mosul and aimed to retake the towns of Hatra and Tal Abta as well as Tal Afar.
The drive toward Tal Afar could bring the fighting perilously close to the ancient city of Hatra, a UNESCO world heritage site that has already been vandalised by the IS.
Though it was not mentioned by name, the operation may also pass near the ruins of Nimrud, another archaeological site that has previously been attacked by the IS.
The involvement of Shia militias in the Mosul operation has been a source of contention, although some of the Hashed’s top commanders insist they do not plan to enter the largely Sunni city.
Iraqi Kurds and Sunni Arab politicians have opposed their involvement, as has Turkey, which has a military presence east of Mosul despite repeated demands by Baghdad for the forces to be withdrawn.
Relations between the Hashed and the U.S.-led coalition fighting the IS are also tense, but the paramilitaries enjoy widespread support among members of Iraq’s Shia majority.
Tal Afar was a Shia-majority town of mostly ethnic Turkmens before the Sunni extremists of the IS overran it in 2014, and its recapture is a main goal of Shia militia forces.
As the Hashed push on Tal Afar got under way, Iraq’s federal police were assaulting Al-Shura, an area south of Mosul with a long history as a militant bastion that has been the target of fighting for more than a week.
“Federal units are assaulting the Al-Shura (area) from four axes and the enemy is collapsing and leaving his defensive positions,” federal police commander Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat said in a statement.
The offensive operations came despite an assertion from the U.S.-led coalition on Friday that Iraqi forces were temporarily halting their advance on Mosul for a period expected to last “a couple days”.
‘IS attack on Ramadi foiled’ In Baghdad, Iraqi officials said that the security forces foiled an attack by the IS on the city of Ramadi, capital of the western Province of Anbar.
The reported thwarted attack led to 11 arrests and comes after a string of diversionary attacks by the IS since the start two weeks ago of the Mosul offensive.
Iraqi forces “arrested 11 Daesh (IS) members who were planning to attack the city” from the suburb of Al-Tash, on the southern edge of Ramadi, said Captain Ahmed al-Dulaimi of the Anbar Police.
Iraqi forces retook Ramadi from the IS in early 2016. Mine clearing and reconstruction efforts are under way but few civilians have returned.
Anbar provincial council member Raja al-Issawi said that the 11, arrested on Friday, had confessed to planning an attack on the city.
The loss of Mosul could spell the end of the IS's days as a land-holding force in Iraq but observers warn the group's remnants could increasingly activate sleeper cells to carry out spectacular attacks in cities.
On October 21, 2016, sleeper cells joined up with militants who infiltrated Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk, sparking deadly clashes with security forces that lasted three days.
Since the start of the Mosul offensive, the IS fighters have also launched attacks on Rutba, an outpost in western Anbar that government forces retook earlier this year, and in the northern Sinjar region.
