Iraq paramilitaries make fresh progress west of Mosul

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s paramilitary Hashed Al-Shaabi forces said Saturday that they had retaken all areas west of Mosul from Daesh except the town of Tal Afar.
The umbrella organization, which is dominated by Iran-backed militias, has been fighting primarily on a separate western front since the battle to retake Mosul was launched in October last year.
Their main objective has been to isolate Daesh militants battling elite forces inside the city by cutting off their supply lines to remaining strongholds in the Syrian part of their now crumbing “caliphate.”
“Hashed forces declare the liberation of all areas west of Mosul except Tal Afar,” the organization said on social media.
Tal Afar is a large town that lies about 50 km west of Mosul on the way to Syria and is still at the hands of the militants, although almost completely surrounded by anti-Daesh forces.
While the Counter-Terrorism Service and other federal forces were retaking Mosul one neighborhood after another as well as urban areas around it, Hashed forces worked their way north and west through mostly desert regions of Iraq.
The Hashed’s top Iraqi military commander, known as Abu Mahdi Al-Mohandis, spoke overnight to hail the achievements of his forces.
“The Hashed are awaiting orders from the prime minister and commander-in-chief of the armed forces (Haider Al-Abadi) to storm the district of Tal Afar,” he was quoted as saying in a statement.
He said that Hashed forces had taken control of an area about two kilometers from Iraq’s western border with neighboring Syria, where another alliance of forces backed a US-led coalition is battling Daesh.
“The Hashed have not entered yet,” he said, without elaborating.
Al-Abadi has repeatedly said that no Iraqi forces should cross the border into Syria.
The Hashed is nominally under his command but some of its components have for years been sending fighters to support Damascus in its six-year-old conflict against various opposition groups.