- Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has announced he will retake Tal Afar in Mosul
- ISIS captured Tal Afar’s airport on the outskirts of the town late last year
- The town is one of the last pockets of IS-held territory in Iraq
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has announced that the town of Tal Afar will be taken from the Islamic State in a speech where he warned the terror group to ‘surrender or die’.
Tal Afar and the surrounding area is one of the last pockets of IS-held territory in Iraq after victory was declared in July in Mosul, the country’s second-largest city.
The town, about 150 kilometres (93 miles) east of the Syrian border, sits along a major road that was once a key IS supply route.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi (pictured) have told IS to ‘ surrender or die’ in a speech addressed to the nation broadcast on state televison
‘The city of Tal Afar will be liberated and will join all the liberated cities,’ Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in an address to the nation broadcast on state television early on Sunday.
Iraq’s mostly Shiite militiamen largely stayed out of the operation to retake Mosul, a mostly Sunni city about 80 kilometres (50 miles) to the east, but have vowed to play a bigger role in the battle for Tal Afar, which was home to both Sunni and Shiite Turkmen before it fell to IS, a Sunni extremist group.
Iraqi Shiite fighters from the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitaries advance in a desert area near the village of Tall Abtah, southwest of Mosul. (pictured) in November 2016
A broad offencive by Iraq forces to retake Mosul from jihadists of the Islamic State group (pictured) November 2016
The militias captured Tal Afar’s airport, on the outskirts of the town, last year.
Their participation in the coming offensive could heighten sectarian and regional tensions.
The town’s ethnic Turkmen community maintained close ties to neighbouring Turkey.
Turkish officials have expressed concern that once territory is liberated from IS, Iraqi Kurdish or Shiite forces may push out Sunni Arabs or ethnic Turkmen.
A stepped-up campaign of air strikes and a troop build-up has already forced tens of thousands to flee Tal Afar, threatening to compound a humanitarian crisis sparked by the Mosul operation.
Some 49,000 people have fled the Tal Afar district since April, according to the United Nations.
Nearly a million people remain displaced by the nine-month campaign to retake Mosul