TAL AFAR: Iraqi forces on Wednesday recaptured several districts and advanced toward the center of Tal Afar.
Armored personnel carriers full of soldiers and fighters of the Hashed Al-Shaabi paramilitary coalition moved into Al-Nur district of southeast Tal Afar early in the morning.
An AFP photographer said spotters on the ground called in airstrikes to cover the advance. “Our morale is very high. We are confronting the men of IS (another name for Daesh), breaking their lines and destroying their arsenals,” said Lt. Col. Monzer Abed.
The pro-government forces encountered trucks parked across roads with earthen embankments aimed at stopping them, as well as sniper fire from rooftops and mortar shelling. Six weeks after routing the Daesh terrorists from Iraq’s second city Mosul, Iraqi forces launched an assault Sunday on Tal Afar, where an estimated 1,000 militants are holed up.
They first retook three districts of the city on Tuesday, but as with the grueling nine-month campaign to recapture Mosul, their convoys face an onslaught of suicide and car bomb attacks.
On Wednesday, they “entered the neighborhood of Al-Kifah North... and headed toward the center of the city,” said Ahmed Al-Assadi, spokesman for the Hashed Al-Shaabi.
The Hashed also announced the capture of the districts of Al-Tanak and Al-Sinaai in eastern Tal Afar.
As government forces advanced, troops said they discovered a network of underground tunnels used by the militants to launch attacks behind lines of already conquered territory, or to escape.
In a bid to counter these surprise attacks, the Iraqis dropped leaflets overnight calling on civilians to help by marking houses where the militants are located.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said “thousands of civilians” had fled Tal Afar since the offensive began. But around 30,000 civilians are trapped in the fighting, according to the UN.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) fears they could be “used as human shields” and that “attempts to flee could result in executions and shootings,” said the spokesman for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
The UN and aid agencies are working to establish shelters for the displaced.
Iraqi forces recapture several districts of Tal Afar
Iraqi forces recapture several districts of Tal Afar
US lawmakers press Israel to probe strike on reporters in Lebanon
- “The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident,” Welch said
- Collins called for Washington to publicly acknowledge the attack in which an American citizen was injured
WASHINGTON: Several Democratic lawmakers called Thursday for the Israeli and US governments to fully investigate a deadly 2023 attack by the Israeli military on journalists in southern Lebanon.
The October 13, 2023 airstrike killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded six other reporters, including two from AFP — video journalist Dylan Collins and photographer Christina Assi, who lost her leg.
“We expect the Israeli government to conduct an investigation that meets the international standards and to hold accountable those people who did this,” Senator Peter Welch told a news conference, with Collins by his side.
The lawmaker from Collins’s home state of Vermont said he had been pushing for answers for two years, first from the administration of Democratic president Joe Biden and now from the Republican White House of Donald Trump.
The Israeli government has “stonewalled at every single turn,” Welch added.
“With the Israeli government, we have been extremely patient, and we have done everything we reasonably can to obtain answers and accountability,” he said.
“The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident,” Welch said, referring to the Israeli military, adding that it has told his office its investigation into the incident is closed.
Collins called for Washington to publicly acknowledge the attack in which an American citizen was injured.
“But I’d also like them to put pressure on their greatest ally in the Middle East, the Israeli government, to bring the perpetrators to account,” he said, echoing the lawmakers who called the attack a “war crime.”
“We’re not letting it go,” Vermont congresswoman Becca Balint said. “It doesn’t matter how long they stonewall us.”
AFP conducted an independent investigation which concluded that two Israeli 120mm tank shells were fired from the Jordeikh area in Israel.
The findings were corroborated by other international probes, including investigations conducted by Reuters, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.
Unlike Welch’s assertion Thursday that the Israeli probe was over, the IDF told AFP in October that “findings regarding the event have not yet been concluded.”
