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Iraq Forces Foil ISIL Attempt to Flee to Syria
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Iraqi forces have thwarted an attempt by around 200 ’jihadist’ fighters to flee their bastion of Tal Afar towards Syria, west of the city of djinn-infested Mosul... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , a security front man said Monday. Forces from the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization), a paramilitary organization, said the ISIS group used tanks in their bid to break out of Tal Afar. "The attack by the ISIS terrorist gangs started at around 7:00 pm (1600 GMT on Sunday), the fighting lasted around six hours," their front man Ahmed al-Assadi told AFP. Hashed forces have been deployed in desert areas west of Mosul since federal forces launched a massive operation to retake the city from IS on October 17. Their main goals are to retake Tal Afar, a Turkmen-majority city which is still held by ISIS, and to prevent the jihadists from being able to move men and equipment between Mosul and their strongholds in Syria. "This was an attempt by ISIS to open a breach, flee to the Syria border and exfiltrate some leaders and fighters," Assadi said. He said that Hashed forces received support from army aviation helicopters when ISIS attacked them. He added that the fighting left around 50 ISIS members killed and 17 of their vehicles destroyed. Assadi did not provide a casualty figure for the Hashed al-Shaabi following the attack, which took place around 20 kilometers (12 miles) southwest of Tal Afar. ISIS ’jihadists’ are confined to a corridor between Tal Afar and Mosul by tens of thousands of forces deployed on several fronts. Posted by: Fred 2017-02-14 |
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