Islamic State demolish homes of fugitive draftees in western Mosul

Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Islamic State militants demolished the houses of young men who refused to join their battle against security forces in western Mosul, according to local sources.

Shafaaq News website quoted local sources as saying that the group brought down five houses belonging to the fugitive individuals, arrested their families and interrogated them.

Since Iraqi forces launched a wide-scale campaign to retake Mosul from Islamic State, the group has lost thousands of members and was ravaged with internal divisions. The group has reportedly executed many of its members for delinquency on the battlefield, and demoted some field commanders for combat failures. It recently faced defiance from locals in western Mosul after it urged them to fight security forces on its side.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on Sunday that security forces launched an operation to retake the western side of Mosul, Islamic State militants’ largest stronghold in Iraq which the group took over in 2014. He said on January 24th that government forces, backed by popular militias and U.S.-led coalition troops, had cleared the whole of the eastern region from militants after more than three months of fighting.

Recapturing Mosul would represent the strongest blow to Islamic State’s proclaimed “Islamic Caliphate”. Iraqi and international coalition generals had predicted the city to be IS-free within six months.

Commanders at the Joint Forces Command and the Federal Police said Sunday they killed 79 militants, recaptured 17 villages and 120 square kilometers of western Mosul on the first day of operations.