Iraqi troops have no orders to follow IS militants in Syria: Military official
Iraqi army forces entering Kirkuk to retake the province from Kurdish troops.
“It’s planned for Iraqi operations to end after controlling Iraqi international borders,” Saad al-Jayashi, head of the cell, told Al-Hurra TV channel’s website on Saturday.
“We want that Syrian official troops reach to the other side of the borders,” to make it easier for Iraqi troops, Jayashi added.
Jayashi added that presence of IS militants in Syria requires doubled preparations from Iraqi forces to control the borders. He indicated Iraqi-Syrian coordination.
The Syrian army and its allies are nearing Al-BuKamal region, within operations to control the region the stretches between Syria and Iraq.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights earlier indicated confrontations between al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) and IS militants near Iraqi-Syrian borders.
Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced on Friday liberation of Qaim in record time.
Many IS militants reportedly fled Qaim heading to al-BuKamal in Syria, after several leaders ran away and were killed in airstrikes by the Iraqi and U.S.-Coalition jets.
Operations were launched, late October, to liberate Qaim and Rawa towns.
Each of Qaim and Rawa have been held by the extremist group since 2014, when it occupied one third of Iraq to proclaim a self-styled Islamic “Caliphate”.
Iraqi forces have managed, so far, 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 and Qaim.