Members of the pro-government Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), known in Arabic as Hashd al-Sha'abi, have managed to cleanse more than a dozen villages in the southern part of the country’s province of Nineveh during the third phase of a major offensive to hunt down remnants of the Daesh terrorist group. RNA - The media bureau of Hashd al-Sha’abi forces announced in a statement on Monday that the 40th Brigade of the volunteer forces had purged 13 villages, including Ayn al-Jahesh, Msheirfeh, ʻArish, Khirbet al-Yazidi, Albu Jarad, Ayn al-Bayda, of Daesh extremists.
Separately, the 4th and 24th brigades of Hashd al-Sha’abi, supported by government troops, destroyed a number of militant hideouts and defused six improvised explosive devices northeast of the town of Miqdadiyah, which lies in Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala and located about 80 kilometers northeast of the capital Baghdad.
A statement by the media office of the Joint Operations Command said on Monday that the Iraqi army, police and Hashd al-Sha’abi units, backed by the Iraqi Air Force fighter jets, had launched the third phase of the Will of Victory Operation in the eastern Diyala province and Nineveh province in the north.
The statement said the troops had begun search operations in rural areas near the towns of Miqdadiyah, Jalawla and Khanaqin in Diyala province.
Also in Nineveh province, the troops commenced an operation to clear the rugged areas of al-Atshanah and the mountain ranges of Badush and Sheikh Ibrahim in west and northwest of the provincial capital city of Mosul.
According to Press TV, the second-in-command of the Joint Operations Command (JOC), Lieutenant General Abdul Amir Rasheed Yarallah, said in a statement on July 20 that Iraqi military forces had launched the second phase of the Will of Victory Operation to hunt down Daesh remnants north of Baghdad and areas nearby.
The statement noted that the offensive aims to “beef up security and stability in areas north of Baghdad and surrounding areas in the provinces of Diyala, Salahuddin and Anbar.”
It said that units from the Baghdad Operations Command, command operations from Diyala, Samarra and Anbar, the Federal Police Command, rapid response teams, Hashd al-Sha’abi fighters and the special forces regiment of the Operations Department of the Chief of Staff of the Army as well as the Special Task Force of the Directorate of Military Intelligence were participating in the offensive.
Iraq's army and the voluntary forces began the first phase of the Will of Victory Operation early on July 7, the military said in a statement, adding that the operation would last several days and was aimed at securing the province of Anbar and the central and northern regions of Salahuddin and Nineveh.
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