BAGHDAD: Iraqi forces attacked a desert outpost of Daesh near the Syrian border on Saturday in preparation for a drive up the Euphrates Valley towards the frontier, commanders said.
The assault targeted the former mining town of Akashat, in mainly Sunni Arab Anbar province some 100 kilometres south of the terrorists’ border bastion of Al Qaim.
Al Qaim and the Euphrates towns of Rawa and Anna downstream form just one of two enclaves still held by Daesh in Iraq after a string of battlefield defeats this year.
“The army, the Hashed Al Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation force) and the border guard launched a major operation to liberate Akashat ... and secure the border to its north,” said the head of Joint Operations Command, General Abdul Amir Yarallah.
The Hashed Al Shaabi are a paramilitary force largely composed of Iran-trained Shiite militias but also including some fighters recruited from Sunni tribes.
Iraqi commanders estimate there are no more than 300 civilian families left in Akashat, a former railhead that was once a major source of phosphate production.
Emad Meshaal, mayor of Rutba, a desert town further south recaptured from Daesh last year, told AFP the terrorists had turned the area into a major hub for arms caches, training camps and command centres.
Iraqi commanders say they estimate Daesh still has more than 1,500 fighters in its Al Qaim enclave.
The terrorists also control a second enclave west of the ethnically divided Kurdish-held city of Kirkuk centred on the mainly Sunni Arab town of Hawija.
A promised offensive against Daesh there has been delayed by a row over a controversial referendum on Kurdish independence planned for later this month.
