BAGHDAD: Iraqi forces announced a new drive against holdout Daesh fighters in the western desert on Friday as Prime Minister Haider Abadi looks to proclaim victory over the terrorists.
Abadi has said he will not declare the insurgents have been defeated until they have been cleared from the dry valleys and other natural hideouts that have provided them with a desert refuge since they lost their last urban centers last month.
Troops and paramilitary Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi forces “launched a major drive to clear areas of Al-Jazeera region between Nineveh and Anbar (provinces) in the second phase of operations,” Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.
In a first phase of operations launched on Nov. 23, government forces moving south from Nineveh and north from Anbar already linked up, clearing large parts of the desert between the Tigris and Euphrates valleys.
JOC spokesman Gen. Yahya Rassoul said on Nov. 27 that they had already cleared 50 percent of the total area of the desert of around 29,000 square km.
At the peak of its power in 2014, Daesh ruled some 7 million people in a territory as large as Italy, encompassing large parts of Syria and nearly a third of Iraq.
It is now confined to just a few small pockets, most of them in the desert.
During a visit to the Middle East on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron said he expected Iraq to declare victory over Daesh by the end of this month.
Iraq in new push against Daesh holdouts as Abadi eyes victory
Iraq in new push against Daesh holdouts as Abadi eyes victory
Thousands stage pro-Gaza rally in Istanbul
- Thousands joined a New Year’s Day rally for Gaza in Istanbul Thursday, waving Palestinian and Turkish flags and calling for an end to the violence in the tiny war-torn territory
ISTANBUL: Thousands joined a New Year’s Day rally for Gaza in Istanbul Thursday, waving Palestinian and Turkish flags and calling for an end to the violence in the tiny war-torn territory.
Demonstrators gathered in freezing temperatures under cloudless blue skies to march to the city’s Galata Bridge for a rally under the slogan: “We won’t remain silent, we won’t forget Palestine,” an AFP reporter at the scene said.
More than 400 civil society organizations were present at the rally, one of whose organizers was Bilal Erdogan, the youngest son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Police sources and Anadolou state news agency said some 500,000 people had joined the march at which there were speeches and a performance by Lebanese-born singer Maher Zain of his song “Free Palestine.”
“We are praying that 2026 will bring goodness for our entire nation and for the oppressed Palestinians,” said Erdogan, who chairs the board of the Ilim Yayma Foundation, an educational charity that was one of the organizers of the march.
Turkiye has been one of the most vocal critics of the war in Gaza and helped broker a recent ceasefire that halted the deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented attack on October 7, 2023.
But the fragile October 10 ceasefire has not stopped the violence with more than more than 400 Palestinians killed since it took hold.
