The Iraqi Armed Forces have killed 16 members of the Islamic State (Is), including four suicide bombers, after rejecting an attack by the jihadists near Tal Afar, the last bastion of the self-styled "caliphate" in the northern province with a Sunni majority of Nineveh. Colonel Dureid Saeed, of the 15th Army Division, told the Kurdish agency "Basnews". Meanwhile, the popular mobilization units (PMU, a coalition of militias with a Shiite majority) have employed about 20 fighters in Tal Afar to
participate in the liberation of the district. This was stated by Ahmed al Asadi, spokesman for the PMU, adding that the battle will last several weeks. It is not yet clear what the role of the militias will be in military operations. Turkey and the Kurds have expressed their opposition to the entry of the PMUs into Tal Afar, fearing violence against civilians. It is likely that the Shiite militiamen limit themselves to surrounding the perimeter of the fighting zone, with the task of intercepting any fleeing jihadists. The PMUs, the Iraqi army and the federal police have sent several reinforcements to Tal Afar in recent days. On August 15, a spokesperson for the
Iraqi defense ministry, Mohammad al Khudari, had announced the start of air operations on Tal Afar against Islamic State targets, specifying that the ground battle will take place after the aviation task is finished. "The Iraqi air forces have started the battle to free the city of Tal Afar by carrying out air strikes on the organization's fortifications," said the spokesman for the Iraqi defense ministry. In Tal Afar, a city with a Turkmen majority in the hands of the Islamic State since 2014, the Islamist militants who fled Mosul have taken refuge.
The city has a strong strategic value, as it is located on the western route of Mosul, near the border with Syria. Its reconquest would therefore make it possible to cut off the main supply and communication route between Mosul and the territories controlled by the jihadist group in Syria. In recent months, various rumors have circulated about the presence of the self-styled "caliph" of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, right in the Tal Afar area, where the Islamic State exploits the close ties with part of the local population. In fact, many of the high military commanders of the self-proclaimed caliph come precisely from Tal Afar who during the period of presence in Iraq of the US forces had become the stronghold of the founder of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and inspirer of the Islamic State itself Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Due to the frequent clashes between Sunnis and Shiites in recent years, Iraqi institutional representatives have repeatedly assured that the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU, a coalition of militias with a Shiite majority) will not enter Tal Afar, but will remain in the peripheral areas. providing only a supporting role for the Iraqi army. However, the advance of the Shiite militias worries the Sunni Turkmen living in Tal Afar, especially now that the paramilitaries are
they would find right at the gates of the city and for over a month they have been bombing the ISIS positions in the town. According to local sources, moreover, the Shiite militias involved in the operation in Tal Afar are said to include at least 3 Shiite Turkmen forced to flee the city in 2014 after the occupation of the Islamic State.
