clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Shia militias prepare for offensive west of Mosul

October 28, 2016 at 10:37 am

An Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia paramilitary organisation are about to launch an offensive on Daesh positions west of Mosul, directly involving themselves in the military campaign to take back the city, a spokesman said today.

The operation will target an area close to Turkey and where a sizeable ethnic Turkmen population live, likely causing alarm in Ankara.

The militias, collectively known as Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi or Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), have completed preparations to move in the direction of Tel Afar, a Daesh stronghold west of Mosul, from their positions in Qayyara, south of the city.

“A few days or hours separate us from the launch of operations there,” spokesman Ahmed Al-Asadi told state TV.

Although predominantly Sunni, the population of Tel Afar, about 55 kilometres west of Mosul, was mix of Sunni and Shia ethnic Turkmens until many of the Shia fled the town after Daesh militants took over the region in 2014, declaring a caliphate over parts of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday his country, which has troops deployed north of Mosul inside Iraqi territory, will take measures if there is an attack on Tel Afar.

Turkey fears the use of Shia militias in the US-backed offensive on Mosul will lead to sectarian strife in the mainly Sunni region and cause an exodus of refugees.

Earlier announcements by the PMF that they will be involved in the offensive on Mosul, Daesh’s last major stronghold in Iraq, triggered warnings from human rights groups of sectarian violence in the mainly Sunni province.

The PMF officially reports to the Shia-led government of Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi who formalised the PMF as an official arm of the Iraqi Security Forces earlier this year. Al-Abadi announced on 17 October the start of the offensive on Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, with the backing of a US-led coalition.

Amnesty International says that in previous campaigns, Shia militias have committed “serious human rights violations, including war crimes” against civilians fleeing Daesh-held territory.

The UN in July said it had a list of more than 640 Sunni Muslim men and boys reportedly abducted by Shia militias in Fallujah, and about 50 others who were summarily executed or tortured to death.

The government and the PMF say a limited number of violations had occurred and were investigated, but they deny abuses were widespread and systematic. No results of these investigations have ever been released, something Human Rights Watch criticised last summer.