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Civilians flee as Shia groups close in on flashpoint town west of Mosul
[Al Ahram] Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have fled Tal Afar as Shia paramilitary groups close in the Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... (IS) myrmidon group-held town on the road between djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... and Raqqa, the main cities of the myrmidon group's self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria. The exodus from Tal Afar, 60 km (40 miles) west of Mosul, is causing concern among humanitarian organizations as some of the fleeing civilians are heading deeper into holy warriors' territory, where aid cannot be sent to them, provincial officials said. Popular Mobilisation units, a coalition of mostly Iranian-trained and backed militias, are trying to encircle Tal Afar, a mostly ethnic Turkmen town, as part of the offensive to capture Mosul, the last major city stronghold of IS group in Iraq. About 3,000 families have left the town, with about half heading southwest, toward Syria, and half northward, into Kurdish-held territory, said Nuraldin Qablan, a Tal Afar representative in the Nineveh provincial council, now based in the Kurdish capital Erbil. "We ask Kurdish authorities to open a safe passage for them," he told Rooters. He said IS bully boyz started on Sunday night to allow people to leave after it fired mortars at Popular Mobilisation positions at the airport, south of the city, and Popular Mobilisation forces responded. The offensive started on Oct. 17 with air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition. It is turning into the most complex campaign in Iraq since the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and empowered the nation's Shia majority. The people fleeing Tal Afar are from the Sunni community, which makes up a majority in the Nineveh province in and around Mosul. The town also had a Shia community, which fled in 2014 when the hardline Sunni group swept through the region. ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... is alarmed that regional rival Iran could extend its power through proxy groups to an area close to the Turkish and Syrian borders, where Ankara is backing rebels opposed to the Russian and Iranian-backed Syrian  Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad Light of the Alawites... Citing its close ties to Tal Afar's Turkmen's population, Turkey has threatened to intervene to prevent Dire Revenge killings should Popular Mobilisation forces, known in Arabic as Hashid Shaabi, storm the town. "People are fleeing due to the Hashid's advance, there are great fears among the civilians," said Qablan, who is also the deputy head of Nineveh's provincial council. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi tried to allay fears of ethnic and sectarian killings in Tal Afar, saying any force sent to recapture it would reflect the city's diversity. Cutting the road to Tal Afar would seal off Mosul as the city is already surrounded to the north, south and east by Iraqi government and Kurdish peshmerga forces. Posted by: Fred 2016-11-25 |
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