Iraq has begun an aerial bombardment of Tal Afar, a town under Daesh control west of Mosul, Baghdad-based Al-Sumariya TV said on Tuesday, citing an Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman. The ground attack to try to take the city should start when the air campaign is over, the spokesman, Mohammed Al-Khodari, said, according to the TV channel.
Iraqi authorities had said Tal Afar, 80 km (50 miles) west of Mosul, will be the next target in the war on the Islamist militant group that swept through swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014. Daesh’s self-proclaimed “caliphate” effectively collapsed last month, when US-backed Iraqi forces completed the recapture of the militants’ capital in Iraq, Mosul, after a nine-month campaign.
Tal Afar, which had about 200,000 residents before falling to Daesh, experienced cycles of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and has produced some of Daesh’s most senior commanders
The town, which had about 200,000 residents before falling to Islamic State, experienced cycles of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and has produced some of Islamic State's most senior commanders.
"The preparations are under way, there are strikes aimed at wearing them down and keeping them busy, targeting their command and control centers, their depots... these strikes have been going on for some time," Iraqi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool said in a statement.
"We are waiting for the commander in chief of the armed forces (Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi)to give the orders for the liberation battle to start."
Earlier on Tuesday, Baghdad-based al-Sumariya TV quoted Defence Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Khodari as saying the ground attack should start after the aerial bombardment campaign.
Tal Afar has become the focus of a wider regional struggle for influence. Turkey, which claims affinity with Tal Afar's predominantly ethnic Turkmen population, opposes the involvement of Shi'ite paramilitary groups fighting with Iraqi forces, some of which are backed by Iran.
One of Iraq's senior military commanders, Major-General Najm al-Jabouri, told Reuters last month that between 1,500 and 2,000 militants were in Tal Afar, a figure which possibly includes some family members who support them.
The U.S.-led coalition is also keeping up its support to the Iraqi forces' campaign to end the militants presence all over the country.
Coalition spokesman Colonel Ryad Dillon said last Thursday that the coalition carried out more than 50 strikes in the past week against Islamic State defensive positions, headquarters, weapons caches, and bomb factories in Tal Afar and also Kisik Junction to the east.
"We fully expect this to be a difficult fight to root out ISIS from one of their last strongholds in Iraq," Dillon told a news briefing.
Jabouri had a different assessment of the battle, expecting a relatively easy victory because the militants and their families there are "worn out and demoralized".
Islamic State has also lost swathes of Syrian territory to separate campaigns being waged by Syrian government forces backed by Russia and Iran and by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic (SDF) Forces, which is dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia. The SDF is currently focused on capturing Raqqa city from Islamic State.
On the other hand, Meshaal al-Salami, the speaker of the Arab Parliament and a Saudi national, arrived in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Monday for talks with Iraqi officials.
According to a statement issued by Iraq's Foreign Ministry, talks are expected to focus on the ongoing fight against the Daesh terrorist group
Discussions in Baghdad are also expected to tackle inter-Arab cooperation, especially that between the Arab Gulf states and Iraq, an Iraqi Foreign Ministry source told Anadolu Agency.
"The Iraqi government is prepared to cooperate with all parties with a view to bolstering security, political and economic coordination with the Gulf States," the source, who preferred anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to media, said
Several officials from the Arab Gulf States have recently visited Iraq amid a gradual thawing of ties after years of tension.
Affiliated with the Arab League, the Arab Parliament's 88 members are selected by the national assemblies of the Cairo-based league's 22 member states.
In 2010, Turkey was officially granted observer status to the pan-Arab parliament, which has played a largely symbolic role since its establishment in 2005.