TAL AL-HESSAN, Iraq: Iraqi forces closed in Monday on Tal Afar on the second day of an offensive against the last major bastion of Daesh in the country’s north, seizing several villages around the city.
In the desert plains around Tal Afar, convoys of tanks and armored vehicles could be seen heading for the terrorist-held city, raising huge clouds of dust.
The offensive launched at dawn Sunday comes only weeks after Iraqi forces retook second city Mosul from Daesh and as the extremists also face assaults on their positions in neighboring Syria.
Tal Afar was once a major supply hub between Mosul and the Syrian border and capturing it would be another major blow to Daesh’s self-declared “caliphate” that once controlled large areas straddling Syria and Iraq.
The Iraqi Army, federal police and counter-terrorism forces backed by 20,000 fighters from the Hashed Al-Shaabi paramilitary group launched the offensive on Tal Afar.
They are battling Daesh on three fronts — the west, south and southeast — and commanders have told AFP they expect to tighten the noose on the militants by edging closer to the gates of the city.
The federal police said its forces had retaken five villages on the western front, with its chief Raed Shakir Jawdat saying they were only “a few hundred meters from Al-Kifah,” the nearest western neighborhood of the city.
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Iraqi forces close in on Daesh-held Tal Afar
Iraqi forces close in on Daesh-held Tal Afar
Syria gunman who killed Americans was to be fired from security forces for ‘extremism’: ministry
DAMASCUS: Syria’s interior ministry said on Sunday that the gunman who killed three Americans in the central Palmyra region the previous day was a member of the security forces who was to have been fired for extremism.
Two US troops and a civilian interpreter died in the attack on Saturday, which the US Central Command said had been carried out by an alleged Daesh group (IS) militant who was then killed.
The Syrian authorities “had decided to fire him” from the security forces before the attack for holding “extremist Islamist ideas” and had planned to do so on Sunday, interior ministry spokesman Noureddine Al-Baba told state television.
A Syrian security official told AFP on Sunday that “11 members of the general security forces were arrested and brought in for questioning after the attack.”
The official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the gunman had belonged to the security forces “for more than 10 months and was posted to several cities before being transferred to Palmyra.”
Palmyra, home to UNESCO-listed ancient ruins, was once controlled by IS during the height of its territorial expansion in Syria.
The incident is the first of its kind reported since Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad in December last year, and rekindled the country’s ties with the United States.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the soldiers “were conducting a key leader engagement” in support of counter-terrorism operations when the attack occurred, while US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said the ambush targeted “a joint US-Syrian government patrol.”
US President Donald Trump called the incident “an Daesh attack against the US, and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them,” using another term for the group.
He said the three other US troops injured in the attack were “doing well.”
Two US troops and a civilian interpreter died in the attack on Saturday, which the US Central Command said had been carried out by an alleged Daesh group (IS) militant who was then killed.
The Syrian authorities “had decided to fire him” from the security forces before the attack for holding “extremist Islamist ideas” and had planned to do so on Sunday, interior ministry spokesman Noureddine Al-Baba told state television.
A Syrian security official told AFP on Sunday that “11 members of the general security forces were arrested and brought in for questioning after the attack.”
The official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the gunman had belonged to the security forces “for more than 10 months and was posted to several cities before being transferred to Palmyra.”
Palmyra, home to UNESCO-listed ancient ruins, was once controlled by IS during the height of its territorial expansion in Syria.
The incident is the first of its kind reported since Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad in December last year, and rekindled the country’s ties with the United States.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the soldiers “were conducting a key leader engagement” in support of counter-terrorism operations when the attack occurred, while US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said the ambush targeted “a joint US-Syrian government patrol.”
US President Donald Trump called the incident “an Daesh attack against the US, and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them,” using another term for the group.
He said the three other US troops injured in the attack were “doing well.”
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