ALALAM – Iraq
Joint Special Operations Command said in a press release on Tuesday that popular forces, fighting with the 60th brigade, were dispatched to the small village of Kanauus, near al-Shirqat to fight ISIL, New Arab reported.
"The operation came very late, but it is very important as ISIL carries out attacks from this village, including the attack on Samarra yesterday," Sheikh Wadah al-Obeidi, leader of a local tribal coalition said.
Obeidi said that Iraqi airstrikes were being used in the attack on ISIS defences, which were being steadily subdued.
"There's a possibility that the village could be liberated within a day or two," he said.
Meanwhile, Badr News reported that Iraqi security forces were managed on Tuesday, to liberate two villages at the left coast of Sharqat.
A statement by the military media said that “the Salaheddin operations command’s troops have managed to free the villages of Shayal al-Abli and Shayal al-Imam on the left coast of Sharqat district in the Eastern axis of the Tigris River”.
The statement explained that “the Iraqi forces that liberated the villages have raised the Iraqi flag on their buildings after inflicting ISIL terror group great losses in lives and equipment”.
Earlier, a local council member for the town of Sharqat, Salim al-Jubouri said in an interview that the Iraqi government had previously neglected various pockets of ISIL fighters in its mission to capture Mosul.
"The mistake made by security agents was to neglect the pockets of areas under the control of ISIS.
"They ignored all the warning signs and didn't act until it was too late, we suffered losses as a result of that, like yesterday in Samarra."
On Monday, five gunmen stormed the city of Samarra, located 70 km North of Baghdad and killed four security forces members in the attacks.
The attacks involved suicide bombers using automatic weapons to get closer to their targets in order to maximize their deadly capability.
ISIL have launched a number of similar attacks in recent weeks on Kirkuk, Rutba and Sinjar, FNA reported.
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