BAGHDAD // Shiite paramilitaries have captured the Iraqi town of Baaj from ISIL, further shrinking the northern region under their control as part of a US-backed campaign to retake the city of Mosul, the Iraqi military said on Sunday.
The Shiite paramilitaries known as the Popular Mobilisation forces announced the “total liberation” of the Baaj district “with support from the air force”.
“The Iraqi flag has been hoisted above its buildings,” said a statement from the Popular Mobilisation, an umbrella organisation for pro-government paramilitaries that is dominated by Iran-backed Shiite militias.
Eight months into the Mosul offensive, ISIL militants have been dislodged from all of the city except an enclave along the western bank of the Tigris river.
The extremist group’s grip on the Iraqi side of the northern region along the border with Syria, a desert area where Iraqi and US sources believe ISIL leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi is hiding, has been ebbing as forces fighting on the side of Iraq’s government have advanced.
The Iraqi air force provided cover for the thrust into Baaj, said the Iraqi joint operations command.
Popular Mobilisation forces on May 12 launched an operation to retake the Qayrawan and Baaj areas west of Mosul, the country’s second city that is the target of a massive anti-ISIL operation.
On May 23, the forces announced they had retaken Qayrawan.
Both areas are in Nineveh, the province of which Mosul is the capital, and lie between territory under ISIL control in Iraq and Syria.
Popular Mobilisation is steered by neighbouring Shiite regional power Iran, an adversary of the US, but it also plays a part in the campaign to defeat ISIL, an enemy of both Tehran and Washington.
Iraqi government armed forces are focusing their effort on dislodging insurgents from remaining pockets in Mosul, which has been ISIL’s de-facto capital in Iraq since 2014.
While reporting nominally to Iraq’s Shiite-led government, Popular Mobilisation has Iranian military advisers, one of whom died last month fighting near Baaj.
Securing border territory between Iraq and Syria is important for Iran to reopen a land route to supply Syrian president Bashar Al Assad’s army with weapons in his protracted war with rebels and militants.
A prominent leader of the paramilitary with longstanding ties to Iran, Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, announced the capture of Baaj.
Iran has helped to train and organise thousands of Shiite militiamen from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan in Syria’s war. Fighters from Lebanon’s Shiite Hizbollah are also working closely with Iranian military commanders in Syria.
US and Iraqi officials believe ISIL leader Al Baghdadi has left operational commanders behind with diehard followers to fight on in Mosul and is now focusing on his own survival.
Iraqi forces backed by the US-led coalition have since October been battling to oust IS from Mosul.
They are advancing on the last areas of the city still held by ISIL, but the presence of large numbers of civilians is slowing their progress.
* Reuters and Agence France-Presse