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Iraq faces tough battle against IS desert hideouts

By AFP
November 28, 2017
BAGHDAD: Iraqi forces said on Monday they face a tough battle against the Islamic State group in deep gorges and other natural hideouts in the western desert along the Syrian border, their last bastion in Iraq.
"Our units have cleared 50 percent of the total area of the desert of around 29,000 square kilometres. The first phase is over," General Yahya Rassoul, spokesman of the Joint Operations Command, told AFP.
"Now our units will proceed to clearing the rest of the desert zones, including Wadi (valley) Hauran," he said.
"The valley is deep and reaches Syrian territory. The mission is to destroy all the hideouts in the desert and valleys to secure western Iraq’s border with Syria" before soldiers are posted along the frontier, he said.
Wadi Hauran, with 200-metre-deep gorges, is the longest valley in Iraq, stretching 350-km from the Saudi border to the Euphrates River, also reaching the frontier with Jordan.
The Islamic State group has controlled most of the valley in Anbar province since 2014, setting up arms depots and resupply posts.
Troops and paramilitaries launched the desert offensive on Thursday aiming to inflict a final defeat on IS.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said he will not proclaim victory until the jihadists have been cleared from the western desert bordering Syria.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Kurdish premier Nechirvan Barzani on Monday accused Iraq’s central government of refusing to open a dialogue even though the Kurds had bowed its opposition to their September independence vote.
"We think the problems between Baghdad and Arbil should be resolved through serious dialogue and not via the media, but so far Baghdad is not ready for dialogue," he said at a news conference in the Kurdish regional capital, Arbil.
Barzani questioned the federal government’s demands for the handover of border posts and airports in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
"Does this mean the Kurds working at the border posts and airports are not Iraqis, or that Baghdad only wants to employ Arabic speakers?" he asked.
After a September 25 independence referendum held in defiance of Baghdad, federal security forces seized control of disputed zones that had been held by the Kurds.
They also blocked international flights from landing in Iraqi Kurdish airports.
Barzani said the Kurds had respected a supreme court ruling that the independence vote was unconstitutional.
But for its part, Baghdad should reciprocate by annulling the sanctions it has imposed on Iraqi Kurdistan, he said.
Barzani has been running Iraqi Kurdistan since his uncle, Massud Barzani, stepped down in the wake of Baghdad’s territorial advances.
The premier also called Monday for an investigation into the mass displacement of Kurds from the mixed town of Tuz Khurmatu in northern Iraq, the scene of deadly violence in mid-October when Iraqi forces seized it from Kurdish control.
"We hold the Iraqi government responsible for what has happened and demand the return and protection of those displaced," the Kurdish leader said.
The United Nations has said 35,000 people were evicted from Tuz Khormatu, mostly Kurds, and expressed concern over reports of homes, companies and political party offices being looted and destroyed.
There’s evidence that containment is already working. In the military campaign against ISIS, the chief purpose of containment has been to prevent the group from gaining more territory, while weakening its hold over the territory it has seized and reducing its ability to extract resources.
This has meant helping those on ISIS’s frontiers—including Iraqi and Syrian Kurds, the Iraqi central government, and Jordan—to better defend themselves.