Free Republic

Iraqi forces have seized the strategically important town of Tal Afar from ISIS, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Thursday. An operation to retake the northwestern town, captured by the extremists on June 16, 2014, began 10 days ago. Tal Afar was the last town still under the control of ISIS militants in Iraq's Nineveh province following the liberation of Mosul, about 45 miles to the east. "The joy of victory has been completed and the entire province of Nineveh has become in the hands of our heroic forces," al-Abadi said, in a statement released Thursday by his media office. "I...

Kurdish Peshmerga forces launched a fresh attack on Islamic State (IS) forces early on Sunday as part of a campaign to capture Mosul, the militants' de facto capital in Iraq, Kurdish officials said. The advance began after heavy shelling and air strikes by a United States-led coalition against IS forces, a Reuters correspondent reported from Wardak, 30 km (19 miles) southeast of Mosul. The militants fought back, firing mortars at the advancing troops and detonating at least two car bombs. A Peshmerga commander said a dozen villages had been taken from the ultra-hardline Sunni militants as Kurdish forces headed toward...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday Moscow was helping the fight against Islamist insurgents in Iraq with the consent of the Baghdad government. "It is necessary to support the cooperation between the Iraqi government and the Iraqi Kurdistan in the fight against terrorism, but we are doing it with the consent of the government," he said. Lavrov, speaking at the Barents Euro-Arctic Council in Oulu, Finland, also said a new intelligence center in Baghdad currently staffed by Russian, Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian officials remained open to all interested parties. "These events show that all those who oppose terrorism...

* Government soldiers tore down sinister black emblem inside Jurf al-Sakhr * They have forced jihadis out of strategically important city in recent days * ISIS confirmed large number of militants have died during intense clashes * But terror group urged fighters to reassemble and launch a fresh attack * The news comes as dozens of Iraqi Kurds left for Turkey this afternoon * Pershmerga troops will travel on to Kobane to help Syrian Kurds fight ISIS Members of the Iraqi army have torn down the sinister black flag of the Islamic State in Jurf al-Sakhr after forcing the terror...

BAGHDAD: Tribal leaders and preachers from Iraq's Sunni heartland who staged a revolt against outgoing Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-led government would be willing to join the new administration if certain conditions are met, a spokesman for the group told Reuters Friday. The incoming prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, faces the daunting task of pacifying Anbar province, where Sunni frustrations with Maliki's sectarian policies have pushed some to join an insurgency led by Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) militants. The spokesman, Taha Mohammad al-Hamdoon, said Sunni representatives in Anbar and other provinces had drawn up a list of...

US military aircraft conduct strike on ISIL artillery. Artillery was used against Kurdish forces defending Erbil, near US personnel.