ISIS News Today 2017: Joint Forces of Iraq and US Defeat Militant Group in Tal Afar
The Islamic State (ISIS) militant group holding base in Tal Afar was defeated by Iraqi soldiers with the help of the U.S. army.
Iraqi forces launched their attack last Sunday, Aug. 20 and spread on five different fronts, catching the ISIS fighters off guard, USA Today reported.
According to former Iraqi ambassador to the United States, Lukman Faily, the growing level of cooperation was a big factor in their victory. The government-sanctioned Shiite military group surrounded the ISIS stronghold while the Iraqi forces charged into Tal Afar.
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U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, a coalition spokesman, praised how quick and far better the operations turned out to be versus their expectations.
"It went very quickly. We went into this planning for the worst," Dillon said.
Another thing that helped was that only a few civilians were left in the city of Tal Afar when the attack happened. This is a great contrast to their campaign to free the city of Mosul. The larger city took Iraqi forces nine months to complete operations because of the thousands of civilians held hostage and used as human shields by the Islamic militant group.
The win in Tal Afar is considered a "morale booster" for the government of Iraq, Faily said. The freeing of the city was also a milestone because it was the last remaining ISIS territory in Iraq. It was occupied by the militant group for more than three years since they took over Syria.
Tal Afar was announced "liberated" by the Iraqi military last Sunday. However, the city is still being cleared for resistance groups.
Meanwhile, in Syria, the Lebanese Army and their Syrian and Hezbollah counterparts called for a cease-fire with ISIS after a week of campaigning against the militant group along the border with Lebanon, New York Times confirmed.
However, there are conflicting reports about the statements that ISIS released. According to the Lebanese group, the truce was to help set negotiations on how to recover their missing soldiers.
On the Hezbollah side, they claim that ISIS had surrendered and gave back the bodies of two soldiers, while also helping with the missing Lebanese men.
