Army launches its operations in Rawah with building dirt cover

A security source announced on Tuesday the establishment of a 140-kilometer-long dirt cover east of Rawah to prevent the infiltration of extremists affiliated with ISIS, while the US consul general in the Kurdistan region, called for a quick dialogue between Baghdad and Erbil to resolve the problems and tension between the two sides.

The source said that Al Jazeerah military operations started with the construction of a 140-kilometer-long earth cover north of Rummaneh to the east of the city of Rawah to a modern lake west of Ramadi.

Meanwhile, The United States-led international coalition launched on Wednesday an airstrike on an Islamic State hideout in Anbar, a military source said. “The air raid left a number of IS militants dead, and destroyed a large cache of their weapons,” the source told AlSumaria News.

Iraq declared the collapse of Islamic State’s territorial influence in Iraq earlier this month with the recapture of Rawa, a city on Anbar’s western borders with Syria, which was the group’s last bastion in Iraq.

Speaking during a weekly press briefing at the cabinet’s building in Baghdad on Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi pointed that security forces had cleared “14,000 square kilometers” of al-Jazirah, a desert region surrounded by Anbar, Salahuddin and Nineveh provinces, from Islamic State vestiges.

“At a military level, Islamic State in Iraq is over,” Abadi declared. He had said that final victory over IS would be proclaimed after al-Jazirah is totally cleared.

IS declared a self-styled “caliphate” in a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014. A government campaign, backed by the coalition, launched in 2016 to retake IS-held regions, managing to retake all havens, most notably the city of Mosul, the group’s previously proclaimed capital.

In the same context, The Iraqi army destroyed on Tuesday an Islamic State camp south of Ar-Rutbah town in Anbar, a military commander said. “The army’s 1st brigade destroyed an IS camp at a desert area near Ar-Rutbah town in Anbar,” Commander of Anbar Operations Major General Mahmoud al-Falahi told DijlahTv on Tuesday.

“The camp included a booby-trapped vehicle, explosive charges and a laboratory for making bombs,” Falahi said. On Monday, a woman was killed, while her husband and daughter were injured as a booby-trapped house exploded in Anbar province.

Violence in the country has surged further with the emergence of Islamic State Sunni extremist militants who proclaimed an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in 2014.

About 114 Iraqi civilians were killed, while 244 others were wounded as a result of terrorism, violence and armed conflicts, according to a monthly release by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).

Baghdad was the worst affected Governorate, coming in the first place with 177 civilian casualties (38 killed, 139 injured). Anbar province followed with 36 killed and 55 injured, and then Kirkuk with 18 killed and 33 injured.

Earlier this month, Iraqi forces recaptured Anbar’s western town of Rawa, the last Islamic State entrenchment in Iraq. On political side, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi vowed Tuesday to give Popular Mobilization Forces payments equal to other government troops, also reiterating military victory over Islamic State militants.

Speaking during a weekly press briefing at the cabinet’s building in Baghdad, Abadi was quoted by Iraqi websites saying that “the government pledges to equalize the salaries of the Popular Mobilization Forces with their peers at security forces”.

He also pointed that security forces had cleared “14.000 square kilometers” of al-Jazirah desert area, a region surrounded by Anbar, Salahuddin and Nineveh where troops carry a last operation against Islamic State vestiges. “On a military level, Islamic State in Iraq is over,” Abadi told reporters.

Popular Mobilization Forces, an alliance of volunteer Shia paramilitary forces, have actively backed the Iraqi government’s military campaign against IS since 2014, when they were formed upon a top Shia clergy edict to counter the Sunni Jihadist group.

PMF won official recognition as a national force late 2016, becoming under the command of the prime minister, who is also the supreme commander of the armed forces. Abadi has recurrently defended PMFs against domestic and foreign accusations of committing human rights violations.

Earlier this month, Abadi said IS’s territorial influence collapsed with the recapture of its last bastion, Anbar’s western town of Rawa.