Abadi: Anti-Daesh campaign has inflicted $100 billion in losses on Iraq

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says the military campaign against the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group has cost the conflict-stricken Arab country $100 billion worth of damage as government forces, backed by fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units, are driving the extremists out of their last redoubt in the country.

“Iraq has lost $100 billion in the anti-Daesh war; but we have achieved success in three battles, namely liberating the land, maintaining Iraq’s unity and standing up to threats,” Abadi said during a speech in the central holy city of Karbala on Saturday.

The remarks came on the same day that Iraq’s state-run al-Iraqiya television network reported that security forces had managed to fully recapture Rumana subdistrict in the western province of Anbar from Daesh.

Iraqi army soldiers, supported by pro-government fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units, better known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha’abi, launched a major operation on Saturday morning to retake the town of Rawah, located about 300 kilometers northwest of the capital Baghdad.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in a statement released on November 8, announced that Daesh had taken about 2,500 families, equivalent to some 10,000 individuals, hostage in Rawah.

The OHCHR also appealed to the Iraqi government and security forces involved in the Rawah liberation operation to step up humanitarian efforts and open safe exit routes for civilians to frustrate terrorist schemes aimed at using ordinary people as human shields.

Late last month, the Iraqi prime minister formally ordered the launch of operations to purge the towns of Rawah and Qa’im from Daesh terrorists.