Iraqi Popular Forces Repulse Daesh Attack near Syrian Border

TEHRAN (defapress) – Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), also known as Hashd al-Shaabi, repelled a major attack by Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) terrorists near the border with Syria, local reports said.

News ID: 69161

Date: 12 March 2018 - 15:10

Abu Jinan al-Basri, a commander of the Hashd al-Shaabi forces, said his forces foiled an attack mounted by the Daesh terror group on the border district of al-Jaghifi, the Arabic-language al-Sumaria TV network reported.

In the operation, the PMU forces targeted the armed terrorists with Kornet missiles, he said, adding that after coming under the heavy fire from the popular forces, the terrorists fled to a desert area in Syria’s al-Hasakah governorate.

Daesh militants made swift advances in much of northern and western Iraq over the summer of 2014, after capturing large swaths of northern Syria.

However, a combination of concentrated attacks by the Iraqi military and the volunteer forces, who rushed to take arms after top Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling for fight against the militants, blunted the edge of Daesh offensive and later forced them to withdraw from the territories they had occupied.

In November 2017, the self-proclaimed caliphate of Daesh collapsed after Syrian and Iraqi armed forces and their allies managed to recapture the terror group’s last strongholds in the two Arab countries.