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Civilians flee as Shi'ite fighters near flashpoint town near Mosul

23 November 2016 21:49 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Thousands of Iraqi civilians have fled Tal Afar as Shi'ite paramilitary groups close in around the Islamic State-held town on the road between Mosul and Raqqa, the main cities of the militant group's self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria, APA reports quoting Reuters.

The exodus from Tal Afar, 60 km (40 miles) west of Mosul, is worrying humanitarian organizations as some of the civilians are heading into insurgent territory, where aid cannot be sent to them, provincial officials said.

Popular Mobilisation units, a coalition of mostly Iranian-backed militias, are trying to encircle Tal Afar, a largely ethnic Turkmen town, as part of the offensive to capture Mosul, Islamic State's last major stronghold in Iraq.

About 3,000 families have left the town, with about half heading southwest, towards Syria, and half northward, close to Kurdish-held territory, said Nuraldin Qablan, a Tal Afar representative on the Nineveh provincial council, now based in the Kurdish capital Erbil.

"We ask Kurdish authorities to open a safe passage for them," he told Reuters.

He said Islamic State allowed people to leave on Sunday after firing mortars at Popular Mobilisation positions at the airport, and Popular Mobilisation forces responded.

The offensive started on Oct. 17 with air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition. It is turning into the most complex campaign in Iraq since the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and empowered the nation's Shi'ite majority.

Those fleeing Tal Afar are Sunnis, who are in a majority in Nineveh province in and around Mosul. Tal Afar also had a Shi'ite community, which fled in 2014 when the Sunnis of Islamic State swept through the region.

Turkey is alarmed that Iran could extend its power through proxy groups to an area close to Turkey and Syria, where Ankara is backing rebels opposed to the Russian and Iranian-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Citing close ties to Tal Afar's Turkmen population, Turkey has threatened to intervene to prevent revenge killings should Popular Mobilisation forces, known as Hashid Shaabi, storm the town.

"People are fleeing due to the Hashid's advance, there are great fears among the civilians," said Qablan.

"Tal Afar is more or less empty now," said another official.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi tried to allay fears of ethnic and sectarian killings in Tal Afar, saying any force sent to recapture it would reflect the city's diversity.

A prominent leader of the Popular Mobilisation units said Shi'ite forces had linked up with peshmerga fighters west of Mosul and completed the encirclement of the city and Tal Afar.

Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes said they had reached a junction where the Kurdish forces were deployed in Sinjar, close to Syria and west of Mosul and Tal Afar.

Islamic State still controls the road between Mosul and Tal Afar, he said in comments on the Popular Mobilisation website. "This is what we are dealing with now," Mohandes said, implying the militias would try to separate Mosul from Tal Afar.

Mosul is already ringed to the north, south and east by Iraqi government and peshmerga forces. Iraq's U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Service unit breached Islamic State defenses in east Mosul at the end of October and is fighting to expand its foothold there.