Commander:

Iraqi Army, Popular Forces to Start Al-Sharqat Liberation Operation Next Week

Rasa - A senior military commander announced that Iraq's joint military forces will start their operations to seize back the city of al-Sharqat in Salahuddin province next week.

News ID: 423391

Date: 09 September 2016 - 23:40

RNA - "Salahuddin operations commander and other military commanders have agreed to kick off the operations to liberate al-Sharqat city on Tuesday," Iraqi volunteer forces (Hashd al-Shaabi) spokesman Ali al-Hosseini said.

He noted that the ISIL terrorists have already started withdrawing from their military positions in al-Sharqat city after they came under the Iraqi fighter jets' raids as they were trying to flee.

Last Saturday, Commander of Hashd al-Shaabi Jabar al-Mamouri announced that the ISIL has captured tens of its terrorists for fleeing the battlefield in al-Sharqat.

"One of the ISIL's Saudi terrorists, nom de guerre Abu Hazifeh, committed suicide by jumping from a high building in the center of al-Sharqat city after escaping from ISIL’s jail where he was kept for fleeing the battlefield,” al-Mamouri said.

He noted that Abu Hazifeh tried to escape from al-Sharqat to Mosul after the ISIL failed to capture the Syrian army’s military positions in al-Sharqat over the past five weeks and the terrorist group sustained high casualties, but he was arrested.

Al-Mamouri reiterated that tens of the ISIL terrorists who have lost their morale and fled the war have been jailed in al-Sharqat’s main jail.

In late August, Commander of Salahuddin Liberation Operations Major General Jomeh Enad announced that “the ISIL-controlled al-Sharqat city has fallen in military terms as the city is under the Iraqi forces' siege and the number of terrorists has considerably declined there.

"Al-Sharqat city is besieged by Iraq's joint forces and a small number of the ISIL terrorists are there," Major General Enad said.

He underlined that al-Sharqat has been taken back from the ISIL in actual military terms, and said, "The ISIL is now under such circumstances that it will soon be forced to flee after few more clashes."

Also in August, informed sources in Salahuddin province disclosed that the ISIL has banned families of its commanders to leave al-Sharqat city.

"This decision by the ISIL came after the number of ISIL commanders and terrorists fleeing al-Sharqat increased sharply and the terrorist group is on the verge of collapse," the Arabic-language media outlets quoted an unnamed source as saying.

The ISIL intends to use its commanders' families as human shield to block the future military advances by the Iraqi security forces.

Also last month, informed Iraqi sources disclosed that ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has pardoned a large number of terrorists jailed for fleeing the war zone in the city of al-Sharqat and sent them to the battlefields to make up for the shortage of militants.

"Al-Baghdadi has ordered tens of ISIL terrorists who had been arrested for disobedience and fleeing the war to be pardoned and sent to war with the Iraqi army," the Arabic-language media quoted an unnamed provincial source in Salahuddin province as saying.

The source reiterated that the ISIL is facing acute shortage of militants as it has lost a large number of them in tough battles with the government forces in different areas, including Hamreen.

111/847/C