BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi on Thursday declared the end of the militant organization, Daesh, in northern Iraq after security forces, backed by a US-led military coalition and the Shiite-dominated paramilitary troops, retook the town of Hawija and the adjacent areas.
Hawija, 45 km southwest of Kirkuk, was the last Daesh stronghold in northern Iraq. It was seized by the radical forces in 2014 after the dramatic collapse of the Iraqi army.
The town was the “Daesh command and control headquarters in the north.” It supervised and controlled militant operations on the eastern bank of the Tigris River where Kirkuk and Diyala provinces are and the western bank of the river where Nineveh and Salahuddin provinces are.
“Today, the city of Hawija was liberated by the hands of the Iraqi security forces, with nothing remaining under Daesh control except the border with Syria,” Al-Abadi said in a joint televised press conference with French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron.
“In this case, we have defeated terrorism in Iraq. This could not have been done without the courage of our heroes and the backing of the international community, including France.”
Hawija, surrounded by mountains, was the biggest source of Daesh fighters and supplies and a haven for the group’s leaders and their families who had fled from the liberated areas. More than 78,000 people were estimated to be trapped inside Hawija, according to the UN mission in Iraq.
“The liberated areas include the center of Hawija, Abassi, Rashad and Riyadh towns in addition to 300 small villages,” a senior military officer involved in the ongoing military operation told Arab News.
“Our troops will keep advancing until they are in touch with the peshmerga (the Kurdish troops in the area), so not an inch will be left for Daesh,” the officer said.
Regaining control of Hawija facilitates the mission of the federal forces assigned to secure the oil fields in Kirkuk and get them back from the Kurdish forces, which drove the army away in the summer of 2014 and took control of them.
Baghdad seeks to impose its constitutional federal authority in the areas that were outside the borders of the Kurdish region before 2003. The Kurdish regional authorities declared a rebellion against the constitution and the federal government by holding a controversial referendum on Kurdish independence late last month.
“We do not want an armed confrontation (with Kurdistan) nor do we do want any hostility or clashes, but federal authority must be imposed in these areas,” Al-Abadi said in the conference.
“My call is for the peshmerga to be part of the federal forces and to operate under its command in order to secure these (disputed) areas,” he added.
Backed by Iraqi and international military aviation, the military operation to re-take Hawija and the nearby areas was launched on Sept. 21 with the participation of thousands of Iraqi troops, including the counterterrorism squad, the federal police, armed units, and some Popular Mobilization Units.
Lt. Gen. Ra’ad Jawdat, the commander of the Iraqi Federal Police during the operation, said 270 militants were killed, 640 square km of land was seized and 141 targets were liberated.
Dislodging Daesh militants from these areas is expected to take time; on the other hand, Iraqi forces did not need more than two days to liberate Hawija itself, military sources told Arab News.
Military officers and analysts said that the morale of Daesh fighters was significantly affected by the group’s huge losses in Mosul, Tal Afar and Shirqat towns during the last few months. Daesh lost more than 20,000 fighters during the military operations launched by the Iraqis to re-take Mosul, the largest Iraqi city seized by the extremists.
“Daesh fighters have been feeling that there was no point in fighting. Their will to fight was broken,” Maj. Gen. Abdulkareem Khalaf, former manager of operations at the Interior Ministry, told Arab News.
“Daesh leaders are fugitives, on the run, and unable to maintain contact with each other. Their central command is missing and the severe airstrikes carried out by US forces in the region prior to the launch of the operation all contributed to the militants’ rapid collapse,” Khalaf said.
Al-Abadi and several military officers contacted by Arab News said that the next target for the Iraqi security forces would be the western Iraqi-Syrian border which extends for more than 600 km.
“Gaining control of the borders means regaining control of security in Iraq. All our troubles and disasters over the last few years have come across the Syrian border,” Khalaf said.
“Al-Abadi’s next priority is securing the Iraqi border. The first stage will be the Iraqi-Syrian borders as the situation there is urgent; then the Iraqi-Turkish border, and the last stage will be securing the remainder,” he added.
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Daesh loses its last stronghold in northern Iraq
Daesh loses its last stronghold in northern Iraq
Ramadan brings a season of grief after an Israeli strike wiped out most of a Gaza family
- In the Gaza Strip, Ramadan has become a season when wartime losses hit especially deep for the many families grieving loved ones killed by Israeli forces
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: As the sun sets, Saddam Al-Yazji, his wife and their daughter sip a noodle soup, breaking their daily Ramadan fast in Gaza City. They sit around a folding table set up in the dirt at the foot of a towering pile of rubble, twisted metal and concrete slabs that was once their home.
Buried under the debris are the bodies of much of their family.
The three are virtually the family’s only survivors. Al-Yazji’s parents, his three brothers and his sister, along with most of their children, and his wife’s parents and siblings — 40 relatives in total — were all killed in a single strike when Israeli forces bombed the house in December 2023.
The Islamic holy month of Ramadan is traditionally a time for family, with large, festive gatherings for iftar, the sunset meal that ends the daily fast. In the Gaza Strip, it has become a season when wartime losses hit especially deep for the many families grieving loved ones killed by Israeli forces, which have been fighting Hamas for more than two years.
“I look at photos of our gatherings in Ramadan and cry,” the 35-year-old Al-Yazji said. “Where is my family? All are wiped out.”
“It’s the third Ramadan without them.”
Family once had large Ramadan meals
During Ramadans before the war, Al-Yazji’s father, Kamel Al-Yazji, brought all his children and grandchildren together for iftar around a large table piled with meat and rice and other dishes, recalled Saddam’s wife, Heba Al-Yazji.
Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, is a month dedicated to religious reflection and worship. It also builds community, with the giving of charity.
The elder Al-Yazji was a former judge with the Palestinian Authority and a well-known sports figure in Gaza, serving as chairman of the Palestinian Athletics Federation. Saddam Al-Yazji earned a living running a supermarket on the ground floor of the four-story family home in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood.
The airstrike came only a few months into the ferocious Israeli bombardment that was launched after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October 2023. The house was leveled on top of everyone inside.
“We were in the same house, in other part of the house,” Saddam Al-Yazji said. “We survived miraculously.”
The only other survivors were the daughter and the pregnant wife of one of his brothers. Among the dead were 22 children.
Some of the bodies were retrieved at the time. One of Al-Yazji’s brothers is buried in a grave marked with sticks at the foot of the destroyed house. Around 20 relatives remain buried under the rubble.
After the strike, the couple and their daughter, 11-year-old Maryam, lived in a tent elsewhere in Gaza City for much of the war. During the previous two Ramadans, they tried as much as possible to come visit the rubble of their home and have iftar there.
When a ceasefire deal came into effect in October, the three moved to a tent next to their old home.
“Life is empty,” Heba Al-Yazji said. “The war took everything from me. We wish we had died with them rather than remain alone.”
Most families feel a loss
Throughout the war, Israel has struck homes and tent camps sheltering Palestinians, often killing large numbers of families at once. Israel says it targets Hamas militants, though it rarely says who were the specific targets.
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 72,000 people, nearly half of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts, though it does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.
Around 8,000 more are still buried under the rubble of destroyed homes, according to the ministry. Retrieving most of those bodies was out of the question when airstrikes and ground assaults were raging. Under the ceasefire, recovery efforts have increased, though they are still hampered by a lack of heavy equipment.
The Israeli campaign was triggered by the Hamas attack that killed some 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 others hostage. The hostages have been released, mostly as part of ceasefire agreements.
Almost everyone in Gaza has lost at least extended family members. Nearly the entire population of 2.1 million is homeless, with most living in vast tent camps. More than 80 percent of the strip’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed.
A landscape of rubble that was once the Rimal district extended all around the small Ramadan table where the three surviving Al-Yazjis ate their meal.
Saddam Al-Yazji recalled the “great dining table” of his family’s past Ramadan gatherings and how they all looked forward to it every year.
“I feel like I have betrayed them by being alive,” he said.
Buried under the debris are the bodies of much of their family.
The three are virtually the family’s only survivors. Al-Yazji’s parents, his three brothers and his sister, along with most of their children, and his wife’s parents and siblings — 40 relatives in total — were all killed in a single strike when Israeli forces bombed the house in December 2023.
The Islamic holy month of Ramadan is traditionally a time for family, with large, festive gatherings for iftar, the sunset meal that ends the daily fast. In the Gaza Strip, it has become a season when wartime losses hit especially deep for the many families grieving loved ones killed by Israeli forces, which have been fighting Hamas for more than two years.
“I look at photos of our gatherings in Ramadan and cry,” the 35-year-old Al-Yazji said. “Where is my family? All are wiped out.”
“It’s the third Ramadan without them.”
Family once had large Ramadan meals
During Ramadans before the war, Al-Yazji’s father, Kamel Al-Yazji, brought all his children and grandchildren together for iftar around a large table piled with meat and rice and other dishes, recalled Saddam’s wife, Heba Al-Yazji.
Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, is a month dedicated to religious reflection and worship. It also builds community, with the giving of charity.
The elder Al-Yazji was a former judge with the Palestinian Authority and a well-known sports figure in Gaza, serving as chairman of the Palestinian Athletics Federation. Saddam Al-Yazji earned a living running a supermarket on the ground floor of the four-story family home in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood.
The airstrike came only a few months into the ferocious Israeli bombardment that was launched after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October 2023. The house was leveled on top of everyone inside.
“We were in the same house, in other part of the house,” Saddam Al-Yazji said. “We survived miraculously.”
The only other survivors were the daughter and the pregnant wife of one of his brothers. Among the dead were 22 children.
Some of the bodies were retrieved at the time. One of Al-Yazji’s brothers is buried in a grave marked with sticks at the foot of the destroyed house. Around 20 relatives remain buried under the rubble.
After the strike, the couple and their daughter, 11-year-old Maryam, lived in a tent elsewhere in Gaza City for much of the war. During the previous two Ramadans, they tried as much as possible to come visit the rubble of their home and have iftar there.
When a ceasefire deal came into effect in October, the three moved to a tent next to their old home.
“Life is empty,” Heba Al-Yazji said. “The war took everything from me. We wish we had died with them rather than remain alone.”
Most families feel a loss
Throughout the war, Israel has struck homes and tent camps sheltering Palestinians, often killing large numbers of families at once. Israel says it targets Hamas militants, though it rarely says who were the specific targets.
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 72,000 people, nearly half of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts, though it does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.
Around 8,000 more are still buried under the rubble of destroyed homes, according to the ministry. Retrieving most of those bodies was out of the question when airstrikes and ground assaults were raging. Under the ceasefire, recovery efforts have increased, though they are still hampered by a lack of heavy equipment.
The Israeli campaign was triggered by the Hamas attack that killed some 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 others hostage. The hostages have been released, mostly as part of ceasefire agreements.
Almost everyone in Gaza has lost at least extended family members. Nearly the entire population of 2.1 million is homeless, with most living in vast tent camps. More than 80 percent of the strip’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed.
A landscape of rubble that was once the Rimal district extended all around the small Ramadan table where the three surviving Al-Yazjis ate their meal.
Saddam Al-Yazji recalled the “great dining table” of his family’s past Ramadan gatherings and how they all looked forward to it every year.
“I feel like I have betrayed them by being alive,” he said.
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