Volunteer Iraqi Shia fighters have engaged the ISIL Takfiri terrorists in the western province of Anbar, killing nearly a dozen of the militants.
On Tuesday, Brigadier General Abdul Amir al-Khazraji, deputy commander of Iraq’s Special Forces known as the Golden Division in Anbar, said ten ISIL terrorists were killed in clashes with Shia forces in the Hay al-Aramil district of the provincial capital city of Ramadi, located about 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of the capital, Baghdad, Iraq’s al-Sumaria satellite TV network reported.
Khazraji further noted that units of security forces also managed to thwart a terrorist onslaught against Hay al-Andalus district of the city.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s Ministry of Human Rights announced that ISIL extremists have executed 23 civilians, among them a woman, in the militant-held northern city of Mosul, located some 400 kilometers (248 miles) north of Baghdad, on the alleged ground that they were in collaboration with Iraqi security forces.
On February 7, local official Mowaffaq Hamid al-Azawi described Mosul as a big open-air prison, where residents are subjected to various kinds of torture and are suffering at the hands of ISIL.
He added that some scholars in the city even distort religious principles to serve ISIL’s interests.
In another development on Tuesday, the ISIL terrorists executed nearly a dozen of fellow militants in Iraq’s northern province of Salahuddin on charges of fleeing the battlefield.
A local source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said ISIL killed the fellow extremists by firing squad. The slain terrorists were accused of escaping clashes with Iraqi government forces in Tikrit, located 140 kilometers (86 miles) northwest of Baghdad, and retreating to Hawija district in neighboring Kirkuk Province.
ISIL started its campaign of terror in Iraq in early June 2014. The heavily armed militants took control of Mosul before sweeping through parts of the country’s Sunni Arab heartland.
Iraqi soldiers, police units, Kurdish forces, Shia volunteers and Sunni tribesmen are engaged in battle with the terrorists to drive them back from some areas they have under control.
