ISIS kidnaps 16 civilians near al-Rouda district
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Islamic State militants have kidnapped 16 civilians from a region in Anbar to an unknown destination, the region’s mayor said.
Muayyad Farhan told Alsumaria News Wednesday that IS militants had kidnapped the civilians from al-Rouda, a district on the road between Rahaliyah and Ramadi which, he said. is totally empty of security presence. He urged the government to secure a pathway for Rahaliyah civilians.
Since Islamic State militants took over several Iraqi cities in 2014, Rahaliyah has been known to be under security control, with barely any breach by the extremist group.
Islamic State has notoriously kidnapped hundreds of civilians and held them as potential human shields since the Iraqi government launched a wide-scale offensive to retake the group’s biggest bastion, Mosul, in October 2016. The holding of civilians and Iraqi forces’ proclaimed commitment to their safety had been one reason for occasional slowdowns in military operations against IS.
The group is still holding some strongholds in western Anbar towns near the borders with Syria. While the Iraqi government has not yet officially declared a security onslaught to retake those regions, fighters jets from the Iraqi army and the allied U.S.-led coalition regularly bombard the group’s locations there, with recent, unconfirmed reports talking about an airstrike having seriously wounded IS supreme leader, Abk Bakr al-Baghdadi.
ISIS executes 21 in Mosul
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) The Islamic State executed 21 civilians in Mosul and Kirkuk on Wednesday for collaborating with security forces against the group.
The militants drowned 13 civilians to death in central Mosul over charges of collaborating with security forces, a local source in Nineveh told Alsumaria News on Wednesday as the group braces for a decisive battle with government troops bent on recapturing the city.
“Daesh (Islamic State) today drowned 13 civilians to death inside metal cages in Dawasah, central Mosul, over charges of collaboration with government and Peshmerga forces,” the source told Alsumaria News, referring to Kurdistan region’s defense force.
The group filmed the execution, which was imposed following a verdict by the group’s so-called “legislative court”, said the source.
A similar execution style was adopted in Mosul’s Faisaliyah district with 14 civilians in August 2016 who were also found guilty of giving insider information to security.
Another source said the group executed eight for the same reason in Hawija, southwewest of kirkuk, but did not specify the method of the execution.
Since it occupied large areas of Iraq in 2014 to establish a self-styled “Islamic Caliphate”, Islamic State has posted videos of heinous executions of civilians, security personnel, and foreign workers over multiple charges, most commonly collaborating with security authorities as well as violating its extreme religious rules.
Islamic State remains in control over most of western Mosul, and government forces are awaiting orders to invade that area since they recaptured the eastern section on January 24th. It also remains strong in Kirkuk’s Hawija.
Islamic State’s reign of terror, as well as encounters with security, forced at least 191.000 civilians to flee to refugee camps, and the United Nations had predicted one million to be displaced in Mosul.
3 civilians die in ISIS drone attack in Nabi Yunus district
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Three grocers died Wednesday and four others were wounded when a drone guided by Islamic State militants dropped two rockets on a marketplace in eastern Mosul.
Anadolu Agency quoted Birg. Gen. Rakan al-Ameri, from the army’s Counter-Terrorism Forces, as saying that the drones targeted a popular market in Nabi Yunus district, one neighborhood retaken during security campaigns that launched in October.
He said the group had made use of inability to address what he described as a “security gap” in areas recaptures by security forces from Islamic State militants.
Since Iraqi government troops became in control of eastern Mosul late January, IS fighters, who fled to strongholds in the west, waged occasional attacks on the liberated areas in the east, either by fighters crossing from the west via the Tigris River or by sending bomb-supplied drones. Militants, some security personnel and civilians were killed in those attacks.
Government troops are awaiting orders from the supreme command to invade the west, with the generals occasionally reiterating that combat plans were ready for the next move.
Consummating the recapture of Mosul would represent the biggest blow to the group which still, however, maintains smaller hideouts in Anbar, Salahuddin and Kirkuk.
ISIS imposes curfew in Tal Afar
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) A local source in Nineveh Province revealed that the Islamic State group imposed a curfew in the majority of Tal Afar, and started to arrest its local leaders in the district, Alsumaria News reported on Wednesday.
The source said, “The Islamic State group imposed a curfew in the majority of areas in Tal Afar, west of Mosul, amid intense spread of its armed detachments in main streets.”
“The Islamic State also started to arrest its local leaders, after the failure of last Saturday’s attack on al-Hashd al-Shaabi and losing dozens of leaders and members,” the source added on condition of anonymity.
Earlier this week, al-Hashd al-Shaabi forces foiled a massive attack launched by the Islamic State on their headquarters in Tal Afar, west of Nineveh Province.