UPDATED: Army forces kill dozens of Islamic State members west of Anbar
Bodies of members of the Islamic State group.
Qaim (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi army forces killed on Friday dozens of Islamic State members as operations launched to retake the group’s last bastions in Iraq in western Anbar, a military source was quoted saying.
Alsumaria News quoted the source saying that the army’s 8th division engaged with a group of Islamic State militants at south of al-Qaim, killing 25.
Another source told Almaalomah news website that army warplanes killed dozens others of militants in Qaim’s desert.
The same website quoted Qatari al-Samarmad, a commander at the Mobilization forces in Anbar, saying that Iraqi troops were besieging IS militants at a “phosphate complex” in Qaim. He said the remaining militants in the town are stranded inside that facility.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared Thursday the launch of operations to clear the towns of Rawa and Qaim, Islamic State’s last havens on the borders with Syria.
Since Islamic State militants took over large areas of Iraq and Syria to establish a self-styled “caliphate” in 2014, Iraqi government forces, backed paramilitary troops and U.S.-led coalition, launched a wide-scale campaign to retake those regions.
So far, the offensives managed to retake Mosul, the group’s former capital, the town of Tal Afar, west of Nineveh, Kirkuk’s town of Hawija and Anbar’s Annah.
Local authorities and human rights agencies believe Islamic State members are holding tens of thousands of civilians in their western Anbar havens as future human shields, having killed hundreds for attempting to escape.
A monthly count by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), which excludes security members deaths, said 196 civilians were killed, while 381 others were wounded due to violence and armed conflicts during the month of September.