BAGHDAD―Pentagon chief Jim Mattis was in Baghdad Tuesday to show US support for Iraqi forces as they pressed an assault on Tal Afar, the Islamic State group’s last major bastion in the country’s north. On Sunday they launched an assault on Tal Afar, once a key IS supply hub between Mosul -- around 70 kilometers to the east -- and the Syrian border. In the desert plains around Tal Afar, convoys of tanks and armored vehicles could be seen heading Monday for the jihadist-held city, raising huge clouds of dust. Iraqi forces “fought like the dickens in Mosul, (it) cost them over 6,000 wounded, somewhere over 1,200 killed,” he noted. Yet that comeback restored the confidence of the Iraqi security forces after their shock loss of Mosul to Islamic State group in 2014.

Source: The Standard August 22, 2017 12:22 UTC