Iraqi Foreign Minister: 70 Percent of Tal Afar City Liberated

About a week after the operation to retake the city of Tal Afar in northern Iraq from ISIS began, the Iraqi Foreign Minister stated that 70 percent of the city has been liberated so far. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, said on Saturday, August 25, at a joint press conference with the French Foreign and Defense Ministers visiting Baghdad, that "God willing, the rest will also be liberated soon." Just hours before this press conference, Iraqi media reported, citing Major General Abdul Amir Yarallah, the commander of the Tal Afar liberation operation, that four more neighborhoods in the city had come under the control of government forces. According to this report, the federal police, along with the Popular Mobilization Forces (Hashd al-Shaabi), succeeded in liberating the Qadisiyah 1 and Qadisiyah 2 neighborhoods, while the Castle and Basatin neighborhoods were liberated by the Counter-Terrorism Forces. The Iraqi forces had reported a day earlier, on Friday, August 24, that 50 percent of Tal Afar had been liberated. Tal Afar is located in northern Iraq, about 50 kilometers from Mosul, near the borders of Syria and Turkey, and had a population of around 200,000 before ISIS's arrival. Tal Afar is primarily home to the Turkmen minority, and some senior ISIS commanders hail from this city. The ground operation by Iraqi forces to retake this city, located in Nineveh Province, began at dawn on Sunday, August 20, following a message from Haider al-Abadi, the Prime Minister of Iraq. Prior to that, for several days, ISIS positions in the city had been targeted by artillery and airstrikes from the US and Iraq, and the Iraqi Ministry of Defense stated that ground operations would commence as soon as the airstrikes concluded. However, ISIS forces, estimated to number around 1,000, managed to halt Iraqi forces outside the city with their artillery attacks on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the United Nations announced that following the extensive assault by Iraqi forces supported by a US-led coalition on Tal Afar, thousands of civilians are fleeing the area. The UN Refugee Agency reported that around 9,000 people have settled in the "Haman al-Alil" center in the past week, which is preparing to accommodate nearly 30,000 people. On the other hand, the International Organization for Migration stated that it has housed thousands of civilians since the attacks on Tal Afar began. According to the report, more than 3,000 people have entered two camps of this organization since Friday. In July, Iraqi forces managed to retake Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, from ISIS after nine months of fighting, and Tal Afar is considered one of the last remaining areas in Iraq under the control of this group.