The pro-government Popular Mobilization Forces will field 20.000 fighters for the anticipated offensive to retake the town of Tal Afar, Islamic State’s last bastion i Nineveh province, a spokesperson said. PMF spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi said Friday that 20.000 fighters will take part in the imminent battle, saying that the recapture of the enclave “will not take more than weeks”.

Tal Afar is 65 kilometers west of Mosul, and is home to a mixed Turkmen and Arab population. Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul, Islamic State’s former capital, early July after more than eight months of U.S.-backed offensives. Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi and his defense officials have marked Tal Afar as their next target of anti-Islamic State action. Iraqi defense officials said recently that warplanes were carrying out raids on the enclave in preparation for the ground invasion which is yet to be scheduled.

Conflicting statements have been frequent regarding the participation of the Shia-led, government-recognized mobilization forces in the liberation of Tal Afar, a town of a mixed Shia Arab and Sunni Turkmen population. Sunni Turkey has pressed Baghdad to exclude the PMFs from the anticipated campaign fearing that the militias would commit genocides against residents from opposing sects. The increasing engagement of PMFs in the battles against IS militants had also drawn opposition from Saudi officials.

 In the same context, Twelve Islamic State militants died Thursday when an underground tunnel they were using collapsed in the town of Tal Afar, west of Nineveh, a paramilitary leader said. Speaking to Alsumaria News, Jabbar al-Maamouri, a commander at the Popular Mobilization Forces, said the militants scurried to the tunnel escaping an air strike. “The strike hit the tunnel’s opening, killing all inside, according to the information we have,” Maamouri stated.

The militants raised alert among members to extract the buried corpses, and did manage to the some out, he said, adding that the group had escalated the digging of tunnels which had usually been used as escape routes or for assaulting security forces. Tal Afar is 65 kilometers west of Mosul, and is home to a mixed Turkmen and Arab population. Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul, Islamic State’s former capital, early July after more than eight months of U.S.-backed offensives.

Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi and his defense officials have marked Tal Afar as their next target of anti-Islamic State action. Iraqi defense officials said recently that warplanes were carrying out raids on the enclave in preparation for the ground invasion which is yet to be scheduled. Tal Afar has reportedly seen divisions among Islamic State leaderships, with occasional news telling of power conflicts and dissents among leaders, as well as attempts by some militants to flee the anticipated battle field.

Since Iraqi forces launched a wide-scale campaign to retake Mosul in 2016, paramilitary troops managed to isolate the town from the Syrian borders and from the rest of Nineveh.

On the other hand, The mainly Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi forces have launched an operation to recapture areas west of Mosul in the early hours of Friday, as the Iraqi forces are engaged in fierce fighting in western Mosul. The main objective for the paramilitary force is Qairawan and Baa’j located west of Mosul and close to the Syrian border, a senior commander Mahdi al-Muhandis told the Hashd al-Shaabi media office. The operation is to achieve its objectives in the “next 48 or 72 hours,” Muhandis hoped.

He said the ISIS-held Turkmen city of Tal Afar just east of Qairawan and Baa’j is still besieged by the Hashd al-Shaabi. The forces have so far liberated several villages, including Um Kaibarirah, the Hashd announced. The operation began at 6:30 a.m. “to liberate the remaining areas west of the Nineveh [province] stretching to the Syrian border,” Muhandis added.

Iraq’s Joint Command of the Iraqi Army has also referenced the Hashd al-Shaabi offensive, adding that its details will be published later. The Iraqi forces, including the Federal Police, the Rapid Response Force and the US-trained Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) are continuing their offensive in northwestern west Mosul, a week after the opening of the new front against the ISIS militants north of the city. 

Rudaw’s Ranja Jamal, embedded with the Iraqi forces, reported ongoing clashes in the Islah al-Zaraye and Iqtsadiyeen districts northwest of the right bank of the Tigris River that bisects the city. Iraq’s Chief of Staff Lt Gen Othman al-Ghanimi repeated his optimism that the Iraqi Security Forces are to liberate western Mosul before the start of the holy month of Ramadan on May 26.

 "The security forces are carrying out a big and effective effort. I say that Daesh (IS) will be finished in days, God willing," Gen Ghanimi told BBC Arabic on Thursday using another term for ISIS. "I say that the rest of Mosul will be liberated before the holy month of Ramadan,” he added.

 The advancing Iraqi forces were able to bring several areas under their control in the last week, including Mushairafa district northwest of Mosul last Saturday, giving them a foothold. ISIS captured Mosul, then Iraq’s second-largest city with some two million people, in June 2014 as Iraqi forces by the thousands retreated in the face of fewer ISIS militants. Mosul is the last major urban area where ISIS still maintains an armed presence.

ISIS is still controls the Turkmen town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul; Hawija, south of Kirkuk; and several places in Anbar province in western Iraq, including al-Qaim and Rawa, near the Syrian border. According to the Iraqi official figures, about 600,000 people have fled the fighting in Mosul since last October when the Mosul offensive, backed by the US-led Global Coalition, began.

Iraq’s Migration and Displacement Ministry says that 467,000 people have fled their areas in western Mosul since late February when an operation began to defeat the extremist group there, with 425,000 still living in the camps.