Iraqi-American meetings to liberate Howeija and Qaem

Military sources revealed that a series of meeting have been conducted between American and Iraqi military leaders on Monday to prepare a plan to restore control of a number of cities, including Howeija of Kirkuk and Qaem of Anbar from the grip of extremist militias of ISIS immediately after the end of the current battle in Mousl.

According Iraqi senior official, Iraqi military Chief of Staff Othman Al Ghanemi held meetings with leader of International Coalition Joseph Fotil and General Stephen Townsend to prepare for a new military operation to restore the Iraqi cities from the grip of ISIS extremist group immediately after the liberation of Mousl.

He added that the plan will start with imposing siege on the Iraqi cities by the military troops and federal police forces. He stressed that they have not discussed the role of militias during the coming battles due to the sensitivity of the city of the Kurds.

On the military side, the battles continued in the Iraqi city of Mousl between the Iraqi governmental troops on one hand and the extremist militias of ISIS on the other hand. Iraqi military leader Hamid Salmani revealed that the militants are keen to resume the fighting not to defend their strongholds in the city but to kill a large number of Iraqi troops. He stressed that the Iraqi forces work to deal cautiously with the extremist militias.

lraqi forces advanced towards more districts in western Mosul on Wednesday as operations against Islamic State militants proceed to retake the region. The army’s Counter-Terrorism Forces command said its troops moved towards the Shuqaq al-Yarmouk (apartment buildings) and Yabessat districts in western Mosul, having recaptured nearby districts of Shuqaq Nablus and al-Resala on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, source in Nineveh saying two civilians were wounded by mortars fired from IS militants at Ghizlani, south of Mosul’s western side. The source said the pair was going to Nabi Shiit district, which was recaptured weeks ago by security forces, to pull out the bodies of relatives buried under debris.

Iraqi government forces recaptured eastern Mosul in January and launched an offensive in February to recapture the western region.Iraqi troops are currently working to retake central Mosul districts from IS militants, specifically eyeing the city’s grand mosque where the group’s self-styled “Caliphate” was declared in 2014.

Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition generals have admitted that battles in western Mosul were much more difficult due to the region’s high population and the complex structure of its residential areas.

On the other hand, The number of refugees displaced by battles between Iraqi security forces and Islamic State militants in Mosul reached 415.000 since security operations launched in October, according to an Iraqi rights group.

This is is the number of people displaced since the Iraqi government launched a U.S.-backed offensive to recapture Iraq’s second largest city and IS’s largest stronghold in Iraq, according to the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights.

The organization voiced concern for the lives of refugees both inside and outside refugee camps. It quoted some refugees from western Mosul saying they preferred to seek shelter with relatives in Mosul’s recaptured eastern side rather than stay at refugee camps in Hammam al-Alil district where “nothing would help them stay,” as they put it.

On its hand, The Iraqi government should mark and cordon the site of a notorious Mosul sinkhole Islamic State militants used to dump dead bodies of their civilian victims, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

The natural aperture had become famous even before Iraqi government forces recaptured the area where it is located weeks ago. HRW quoted witnesses saying that many of the dead bodies of people slaughtered by IS, including members of Iraqi security forces, were thrown into a site known as Khasfa, about eight kilometers south of western Mosul. “Local residents said that before pulling out of the area in mid-February, ISIS laid improvised landmines at the site,” HRW said in a report.

“This mass grave is a grotesque symbol of ISIS’s cruel and depraved conduct – a crime of a monumental scale,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Laying landmines in the mass grave is clearly an attempt by ISIS to maximize harm to Iraqis.”

Khasfa was not the only mass grave of IS victims discovered by Iraqi troops or allied paramilitary forces in Mosul and other areas held by the extremist group since security forces launched an offensive in October to retake Iraq’s second largest city.

HRW upon the government to ensure citizens are enabled to identify relatives believed to be buried in that hole. “The strong desire to exhume the remains of loved ones from ISIS mass graves is perfectly understandable, but hastily conducted exhumations seriously harm the chances of identifying the victims and preserving evidence,” Fakih said. “While exhuming the remains of those killed at Khafsa may be difficult, authorities should do what they can to make sure that those who lost their loved ones there have access to justice.”