Tal Afar Liberation Marks End of IS in Iraq

An advisor to the parliament speaker hailed Iraq’s success in recapturing the city of Tal Afar from the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group as a victory that marks the elimination of the terrorist group from the Arab country. In a post on his Twitter account on Sunday, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian congratulated the Iraqi government, nation, armed forces, religious authorities and voluntary fighters on the victory over IS, Tasnim News Agency reported.

“The liberation of Tal Afar means the end of IS in a stable and safe Iraq,” Amir-Abdollahian, a former deputy foreign minister, added. On Sunday, Iraqi forces drove IS terrorists from Tal Afar, clearing one of the few remaining IS strongholds in the country. The recapture came just one week into the battle for Tal Afar, which once served as a way station between the terrorist group’s de facto capitals Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. Tal Afar, which had a pre-war population of about 200,000, was the latest target in the war on IS following the recapture of Mosul in July after a nine-month campaign that left much of the city, the biggest in northern Iraq, in ruins.