Iraqi forces arrested nine leaders of ISIS extremist group in the Iraqi city of Mousl, as Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi is expected to form a new parliamentary coalition. Sources revealed that Iraqi cleric intends to support a civilian electoral coalition and not to support the coalition of Ahrar related to his political current.
Meanwhile, Security forces killed two Islamic State suicide attackers north of Tikrit, Salahuddin, the Interior Ministry said Thursday. Police forces in Baiji killed the pair at Silo al-Haggag area after they were trapped inside an abandoned house, ministry spokesperson Saad Maan said in a statement.
Islamic State militants have stepped up attacks on security forces, allied paramilitary troops and civilians over the past months across Iraqi provinces, including Salahuddin, coinciding with Iraqi government troops’ operations which managed to oust the group from Mosul, their largest bastion in Iraq.
The eastern side of the town of Shirqat remains Islamic State’s most remarkable holdout in Salahuddin, and it had been the launching point of several attacks. The Iraqi government plans to invade Islamic State holdouts across Iraq in the near future having concluded its eight-month campaign in Mosul. Violence and armed conflicts left more han 700 civilian casualties in Iraq during June, according to a monthly casualty count by the United Nations’ Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI).
In the same context, A police officer was arrested on Thursday on charges of smuggling the families of Islamic State (IS) elements from Nineveh governorate to Salahuddin governorate, the Ministry of Interior said.
“The arrest was based on intelligence information as security forces ambushed the police officer on a road lining between Baiji and Tikrit cities while he was smuggling families of the terrorists,” the ministry added in a statement.
The suspect was referred to investigation bodies for questioning and confessed to working with the IS terror group exploiting his position, the statement added.
Since Iraqi forces launched offensives last year to recapture areas held by the Islamic State, occasional news reports emerged quoting local officials and parliamentarians speaking about corrupt security members setting militants free in return for money.
Earlier today. Anbar’s local council blamed recurrent breaches by IS militants of the province’s security on corruption within security bodies besides what it described as the infiltration of paramilitary troops fighting the group alongside the government.
The United Nations had recently warned against “collective punishments” of civilians believed to have links with IS members. Authorities in Mosul had unveiled plans to isolate those families and send them to rehabilitation camps.
Iraqi security forces killed four suicide bombers while a fifth one killed a whole family west of Anbar, a senior army commander said Friday. Qassem al-Mohammadi, head of the army’s Al-Jazeera Operations, said in statements that security forces, backed by Tribal Mobilization troops, trapped five suicide bombers in al-Baghdadi region (90 Km west of Ramadi).
“The suiciders sneaked into al-Baghdadi through the desert, four of them were killed, while a fifth one blew himself up inside a house, killing a whole family of six, two parents and four children,” Mohammadi stated. Government and tribal forces have occasionally repelled attacks by suicide bombers in Baghdadi ad Doulab regions, with the encounters usually leaving civilian casualties.
Islamic State has held the towns of Annah, Rawa and Qaim, on Anbar’s borders with Syria, since 2014, when they occupied a third of Iraq to proclaim an “Islamic Caliphate”. So far, there has not been a wide-scale campaign to retake those regions, but occasional offensives managed to take over several surrounding villages.
The Iraqi government declared victory over IS in Mosul, the group’s former capital in Iraq, earlier this month, and said it was going to proceed towards other group holdouts. The Ministry of Defense said Wednesday that though the Joint Operations Command gives “special attention” to the liberation of Tal Afar as the next target, troops can launch simultaneous operations also targeting IS havens west of Anbar. On Thursday, Iraqi warplanes dropped millions of messages telling locals that liberation offensives for the province were nearing.
On political side, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi will break up with his party and form a new entity for the upcoming parliamentary elections, a newspaper reported. London-based The New Arab quoted a political figure close to Abadi saying that the prime minister was close to declare Tahrir wal Benaa (liberation and construction), to run the elections independently from the Islamic Daawa party, where Vice President Nouri al-Maliki serves as a secretary-general.
Abadi has managed to incorporate 130 members of Islamic Daawa and other parties into his new party, the source told the newspaper. He also won the backing of several leaders of the Popular Mobilization Units, the Shia-led paramilitary force backing the government troops. The latters will give up armed role in order to be able to run the elections, according to the source.
Mansour al-Baiji, a member of Maliki’s State of the Law coalition,  which contains Islamic Daawa, said the party will run the elections through two separate lists led by Abadi and Maliki. He pointed to divisions and resignations rocking the broader Iraqi National Alliance, the umbrella bloc that incorporates the country’s largest Shia entities. Iraq has yet to specify a date for legislative elections intended for 2018.
Observers believe Maliki, a close ally to Iran and Iraq’s top Shia clergy, has obviously been preparing to return for competition over government premiership, which he lost in 2014 to political and popular pressures after Islamic State militants took over a third of the country.
Late Tuesday, Ammar al-Hakim, chief of the Iraqi National Alliance, also withdraw from his post as the head of the Islamic Supreme Council, another component of the Shia alliance.