ISIS News Today: Police prepare for invasion of ISIS haven in Salahuddin
Members of Iraqi Federal Police carry their weapon at the frontline during a battle with Islamic State militants in western Mosul, Iraq June 5, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro
Shirqat (IraqiNews.com) ISIS News Today/ Iraqi Federal Police artillery bombarded Islamic State locations in Salahuddin preparing for an imminent invasion of the group’s havens on the province.
The service’s chief, Lt. Gen. Shaker Jawdat, said artillery forces pounded IS locations in the eastern side of the city of Shirqat early Wednesday, preparing to invade the town within the coming few hours from several directions.
“Hundreds of militants are bastioned in an area of nearly 800 square kilometers, relying on combat tactics that are exposed to our forces, and resort to booby-trapped cars, suicide attackers and snipers,” Jawdat said. “Our drones and army warplanes continue to target defense positions of the enemy,” he added.
Iraqi network NRT quoted military sources on Tuesday saying that security operations to retake IS-held areas in Shirqat and Kirkuk’s Hawija would be launched simultaneously with current offensives targeting IS holdouts in western Anbar. They said that while Shirqat’s liberation would be entrusted to Federal Police, Hawija and would be the mission of the Counter-Terrorism Service and the Rapid Response Forces.
ISIS News Today
Since the Iraqi government, backed by a United States-led coalition and paramilitary troops, launched in 2016 a wide-scale campaign to retake areas the group had held since 2014, government troops have managed to recapture Mosul, Islamic State’s former capital in Iraq, early July and Tal Afar, a town west of Mosul, by the end of August.
IS has waged occasional attacks on civilians and security inside Salahuddin and on the borders with Diyala province over the past months.