Wednesday 19 / March / 2025
Baghdad: A coalition of mainly Iraqi militias advancing on the IS-held town of Tal Afar plans to seize a nearby military air base from the militants, the first time the forces have targeted such a base, militia officials said on Tuesday.
The Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) paramilitary forces are deployed in the arid region west of Mosul as part of a wider military campaign to retake the largest city under IS control in Iraq or neighbouring Syria.
The town of Tal Afar, and its air base, are located on the highway west of Mosul. Capturing them would help cut IS supply lines between Mosul and its Syrian territories, and offer a base for the Hashid's stated plan ultimately to take their battle with IS into Syria.
"Now we are 25km (15 miles) from the Tal Afar air base," said Kareem Alewi, a commander of one of Hashid Shaabi brigades and a member of the Badr Organisation, the most powerful force within the paramilitary alliance.
"Tal Afar air base has strategic importance for us considering that it's on the Iraq-Syrian border, so it will be a general base for all factions of the Hashid Shaabi and it will be the launch pad for these forces to protect the Syrian-Iraqi borders," he told Reuters.
He said it would be the first military base controlled by the Hashid, who could take their fight across the frontier once Mosul is taken. "If Iraq is liberated, no doubt our second goal will be to pursue Daesh (IS) inside Syria," he said.
A spokesman for another force in the Hashid Shaabi, the Kata'ib Hezbollah, confirmed that control of the air base at Tal Afar was a "one of our basic aims".
Jafaar Al Hussaini suggested the base could then be handed over to Iraqi security forces rather than retained by the Hashid force. "The issue may be decided later, and we have many options," he said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi has sought to calm fears that the operation to recapture Tal Afar would ignite sectarian tension, or escalate problems with Turkey, saying the attacking force will reflect the town's religious and ethnic make-up.
Hussaini said there was no final agreement for the Hashid Shaabi to go into Tal Afar, but it had two brigades made up of Turkmens originally from the town who could take part "to overcome the sensitivities over the liberation of Tal Afar".
"They could carry out this operation, as part of the Hashid Shaabi," he said. "The two brigades could participate with the security forces entering Tal Afar."
Zuhair Al Jabouri, spokesman for a newly formed force known as the Nineveh guards, said the government "should be aware of the sensitivity of Tal Afar" and assign the upper hand to the army in the operation to recapture it.
Jabouri and a parliamentarian Abdul Rahman Al Lwezi, from Mosul, both said Abadi had told Tal Afar tribal leaders at a meeting last Thursday that only Turkmen members of the Hashid force would be allowed to enter the town.
Alewi, the Badr commander, said Hashid forces cut the road west from Tal Afar to Syria early on Tuesday and were now focusing on the air base and the town.
Tal Afar has a large concentration of IS fighters and is believed to be heavily fortified, but Alewi said it could be taken with relative ease.
"The Hashid Shaabi force is a conquering force, a major force which has brigades, weapons, lethal rockets... and has the ability to advance quickly," he said.
Meanwhile, the United Nations human rights organisation said that IS militants abducted 295 former Iraqi Security Forces members near the militant stronghold of Mosul and also forced 1,500 families to retreat with them from Hammam Al Alil town.
"People forcibly moved or abducted, it appears, are either intended to be used as human shields or - depending on their perceived affiliations - killed," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
About 100 of the former ISF officers were taken at around midnight on November 3 from Mawaly village, which is about 20km (12 miles) west of Mosul. A further 195 were abducted between November 1 and November 4 from villages in Tal Afar district.
The abducted families were being taken from their town to Mosul airport, Shamdasani said.
"The fate of these civilians is unknown for the moment," she told a UN briefing in Geneva.
The United Nations also had information that at least 30 sheikhs were abducted in Sinjar district on November 2 or November 3 and taken to an unknown location. It was trying to verify a report that 18 of them had been killed on November 4 in Tal Afar district, Shamdasani said.
