Iraqi command: 25.000 IS fighters killed throughout Mosul operations
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Security operations against the Islamic State militants in Mosul left 25.000 militants killed, according to the Iraqi command that led the war to retake Iraq’s second largest city.
Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Yarallah, head of the Nineveh Operations at the Joint Operations Command, said in a briefing on Saturday that more than 25.000 militants were killed over the nine months of battles, including more than 450 suicide bombers.
Iraqi forces destroyed 1247 booby-trapped cars and shot down 130 drones belonging to the group besides more than 1500 diverse vehicles, Yarallah said.
The JOC fought the battle with more than 100.000 government and paramilitary troops, Yarallah added. “The Iraqi army fought a battle that no army in the world had fought,” the commander said.
Only the regions of Mahalabiya, Ayyadia and Tal Afar still witness an Islamic State existence, and with their recapture, the province becomes fully liberated, according to the commander.
In a separate statement, Iyad al-Assali, an Iraqi police lieutenant, told Turkish agency Anadolu that security arrested 245 suspected IS militants in western Mosul’s Old City since Iraqi troops took over the medieval area.
Foreign IS female member arrested in Mosul’s Old City, Yazidi boy freed
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi troops have arrested a foreign woman with a sniping gun in her possession in Mosul’s Old City, an army officer said.
“While combing regions in the Old City, Iraqi troops arrested a woman, below 20 years old inside a house in al-Shahwaniya region in the Old City. She was possessing a sniping gun,” Cap. Haidar Ali al-Waeli told Anadolu Agency.
“We couldn’t identify her nationality, but she doesn’t seem to be Iraqi. She knows only few Arabic words. She was speaking a foreign language, maybe German or Czech,” he added.
Arrested, “the member was taken to security headquarters in Mosul for investigations,” Waeli said.
In related news, security troops were able to free a 10-year old Yazidi boy, who was held in al-Qulai’at region in the Old City.
According to Lt.Gen.Fathi al-Assali, of local police, the boy, from Sinjar, suffered injuries as part of the house, where he was held, collapsed. He was taken to hospital for treatment.
On Saturday, Iraqi troops found a Chechen girl with burns onher body under rubble of a house in the same region in the Old City.
Iraq arrests Islamic State’s fiercest female member, south of Mosul
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi security services have arrested one of the most dangerous female terrorists of the Islamic State’s terror group, Shafaq News reported on Sunday.
The detainee, Ahlam Mohsen Ali, is considered by the world’s intelligence services as the leader of the Islamic State’s female terrorists.
Ahlam grew up in al-Houd village in Qayyara district, south of Mosul, before becoming a fierce terrorist who pushed her son to join militant group. She also helped the group in the seizure of Mosul in mid-2014.
Ahlam, who paid allegiance to IS on June 10, 2014, was arrested with her brother, a prominent IS member, in an operation by the security forces on a bridge that links the eastern and western halves of Mosul, during the liberation of the city on July 10.
A security force revealed information about Ahlam’s work as an IS sleeper cell and a leader for the female terrorists since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003.
“I saw Ahlam once in my life in 2006 when we raided the house of her family after a terror attack executed by one of her brothers,” the source told Shafaaq News.
“During the investigation, Ahlam admitted that she provided IS with information about police officers and al-Houd village before the fall of Mosul,” he said.
Ahlam belongs to a poor family. Her father is a retired military officer and she has four brothers and sisters. “She escaped her husband because he used to work as a police officer before the IS occupation of Mosul, and he refused to pledge his allegiance to the group,” the source added.
Two wounded by IS war remnants explosion in Mosul’s Old City
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) An improvised explosive device (IED) from the Islamic State’s war remnants exploded on Sunday in the Old City of Mosul, leaving three injured, a security source told Shafaaq News.
“Three civilians were wounded after an IED from the Islamic State’s war remnants exploded, while leaving the Old City of Mosul,” the source said.
On another note, a medical source said that bodies of two women were pulled from the rubble in Mosul’s Old City, noting that the two women may have died during an air strike, which is believed to be carried out more than 10 days ago.
IS fighters’ children to be sent to orphanage or home country: governmentNineveh (IraqiNews.com) The children of Islamic State fighters are facing deportation to home countries or retention in orphanages, the Iraqi government has said in a statement.
The Nineveh province council said children belonging to foreign IS fighters will be handled based on “Iraqi laws”.
Aljournal News quoted council member Hassan al-Allaq saying that, based on Interior Ministry laws, an Iraqi mother with children from a foreigner should provide courts with a parenthood evidence, after which the court should decide on citizenship rights for the kids.
“If the wife is a Daesh (IS) member, as is the case with her deceased husband, she will be referred to justice based on the anti-terrorism laws, while her children will be referred to an orphanage,” Allaq stated. “If the the father and the mother are both Daesh members, and also non-Iraqis, their home country will be approached to receive the children back. If that fails, they will be sent to an orphanage”.
Iraqi forces have been vetting hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians for suspected IS links, and have occasionally declared arresting several suspected members of the group hiding in the middle of refugees.
Nineveh’s local government declared plans last month to deport IS members’ families to camps for rehabilitation, and said it would no longer allow receiving migrant Islamic State fighters families arriving from other provinces.
Parliament committee: unregistered refugees in Nineveh exceed 1 million
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) More than one million displaced civilians are not registered by the migration authorities in Nineveh, an Iraqi parliament committee said Sunday.
“Since the beginning of Nineveh operations, there had been a large-scale migration movement that reached more than one million from Mosul, besides more than 954.000 from the rest of non-liberated Nineveh regions,” Zahed al-Khatouni, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s Migration and Displacement Ministry, said in a press statement quoted by AlGhad Press.
“We have approached the migration ministry to register more than one million migrants who are not registered despite staying at camps,” said Khatouni.
He, however, gave the ministry the excuse for that registration failure, saying that the daily volume of migration, which reached 17.000 people per day, had overwhelmed the ministry.
According to Khatouni, civilians repatriated in Mosul stood at 230.000, while the total of those displaced from the city reached 940.000.
Over 25 female ISIL terrorists captured in Mosul
[AlMasdar] The Iraqi Army captured over 25 female Islamic State (ISIL) terrorists inside Mosul while conducting a cleansing operation this weekend, the security forces announced Sunday.
Among the 25 female Islamic State members captured by the Iraqi Army this weekend were three terrorists from Turkey, five were German, three were Russian, two were Canadian, one was Chechen, and the remaining were Libyan and Syrian.
These ISIL members were apprehended during a cleansing mission carried out by the Iraqi Army inside a tunnel built by the terrorist group.
In addition to the ISIL members, the Iraqi Army also confiscated a large supply of weapons that were present in the tunnel during their cleansing operation.