Iraqi forces backed by tribal fighters are manoeuvring into position in the western desert bordering Syria to launch an offensive against one of the last bastions of the Islamic State group.<\/p>\n
The jihadist group has suffered a string of defeats on the battlefield that have left in tatters its \u201ccaliphate\u201d, three years after it was declared.<\/p>\n
After driving IS out of Nineveh province earlier this year, the Iraqi government set its eyes on Hawija, north of Baghdad, as well as the towns of Al-Qaim, Rawa and Anna in the western desert.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday an AFP correspondent who toured the region saw several artillery units positioning themselves around Rawa and Anna, around 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the border with Syria.<\/p>\n
Moving in clouds of dust, gunners set up their equipment in the rugged terrain and dug trenches before test-firing mortar rounds.<\/p>\n
Further in the distance the infantry deployed, backed by tribal fighters.<\/p>\n
Sheikh Qatari Kahlan, who commands one of the tribal units, said his forces were ready for battle.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the tribes wanted to take part to liberate the region and fight against IS,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cTribe members inside Anna and Rawa are giving us information and assuring us that the battle will be ferocious but quick,\u201d he added, pointing an automatic rifle at the horizon.<\/p>\n
Up ahead a few palm trees dotted an otherwise desert landscape, through which runs an asphalt road.<\/p>\n
An Iraqi general, who declined to be named, estimated that \u201cmore than 1,500 jihadists\u201d were in Anna, Rawa and Al-Qaim.<\/p>\n
Al-Qaim lies closer to the Syria border and just across from Deir Ezzor province where IS jihadists are facing separate offensives from US-led Arab-Kurdish forces and government troops backed by Russia.<\/p>\n
Another Iraqi commander, Qotaiba Assaad, said he expected the offensive to retake Rawa, Anna and Al-Qaim to be \u201cquick and to our advantage\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have fought IS for three years and we know their methods: car bombs, snipers and bombs,\u201d said Assaad, who set up his unit in Al-Sagra a few kilometres away from Rawa and Anna.<\/p>\n
Lieutenant Colonel Jamal Amr said huge efforts and \u201ca real coordination between all our forces\u201d are needed to keep the jihadists from across the porous Iraq-Syria border.<\/p>\n
The battle for Hawija is expected to be more complicated because of its location in oil-rich Kirkuk province, which is at the centre of a long-running dispute between the Iraqi federal government in Baghdad and regional Kurdish authorities.<\/p>\n
An offensive targeting Hawija could also be postponed due to a referendum on Kurdish independence planned for September 25 — which Baghdad has called \u201cunconstitutional\u201d and \u201cuntimely\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday Iraq\u2019s parliament voted against plans by Kurdish leaders to hold the referendum.<\/p>\n
Iraqi forces and paramilitary units announced plans to retake Hawija on September 1, a day after recapturing Tal Afar and weeks after ousting IS jihadists from second city Mosul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iraqi forces backed by tribal fighters are manoeuvring into position in the western desert bordering Syria to launch an offensive against one of the last bastions of the Islamic State group. The jihadist group has suffered a string of defeats on the battlefield that have left in tatters its \u201ccaliphate\u201d, three years after it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4764,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4762\/revisions\/4764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}