BAGHDAD: Iraqi security forces started an offensive to take back the city of Tal Afar on Sunday, their next objective in the US-backed campaign to defeat the militant Islamic State (IS) group, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said.

“You either surrender, or die,” Abadi said in a televised speech announcing the offensive, addressing the IS fighters.

A long-time stronghold of hard-line Sunni militants, Tal Afar, 80km west of Mosul in Iraq’s far north, experienced cycles of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and it has produced some of the most senior commanders of IS.

The city was cut off from the rest of IS-held territory in June. It is surrounded now by Iraqi government troops and Shia volunteers in the south, and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in the north.

Hours before Abadi’s announcement, the Iraqi air force dropped leaflets over the city advising the population to take precautions.

2,000 battle-hardened militants are expected to put up tough fight

“Prepare yourself, the battle is imminent and the victory is coming, God willing,” the leaflets read.

About 2,000 battle-hardened militants remain in Tal Afar, according to US and Iraqi military commanders.

They are expected to put up a tough fight, even though intelligence from inside the city indicates they have been exhausted by months of combat, aerial bombardments, and by the lack of fresh supplies.

“Intelligence gathered shows clearly that the remaining fighters are mainly foreign and Arab nationals with their families and that means they will fight until the last breath,” Colonel Kareem al-Lami, from the Iraqi army’s 9th Division, said.

Air strikes

The “caliphate” proclaimed by IS in swathes of northern and western Iraq, taken in a shock 2014 offensive, in effect collapsed last month when US-backed Iraqi forces recaptured the militants’ capital in Iraq, the major city of Mosul, after a nine-month campaign.

But parts of Iraq and Syria remain under IS control, including Tal Afar, a city with a pre-war population of about 200,000.

The main forces taking part in the offensive are the Iraqi army, air force, federal police and the elite US-trained Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), who began encircling the city on Sunday.

The Shia Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), some of whom are trained and armed by Iran, confirmed they are also taking part in the battle. Their involvement is likely to worry Turkey, which claims an affinity with the area’s predominantly ethnic Turkmen population.

Five villages surrounding Tal Afar were retaken by Iraqi Forces and the PMF on the first day of the offensive.

The US-led coalition said in recent days that it had carried out dozens of air strikes on Tal Afar, targeting weapons depots and command centres.

As the campaign got under way, the US-led coalition carried out dozens of strikes in support of Iraqi forces as they advanced on the outskirts of Tal Afar, US officials said.

Only a small portion of the strikes had been planned in advance, while the rest targeted IS fighters emerging during the offensive, they said.

US commanders say Tal Afar’s complicated geography, with ridge lines around city that could provide shooting positions for IS fighters, will heighten the need for overhead imagery.

“We clearly need to be in position to ensure that we are providing the eyes on the other side of the hill for the Iraqis,” Lt Gen Jeffrey Harrigian, the top US Air Force commander in the Middle East, said.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2017