Over 5,500 Fresh Volunteers Join Iraq’s War on ISIL

Some 5,500 residents of Southern Iraq finished their military trainings to join the volunteer forces, known as Hashd al-Shaabi, for the fight against the ISIL terrorist group, Dhiqar Governor General Yahya al-Nasseri announced on Sunday.

“A sum of 5,583 Iraqi volunteer forces have completed their military training in the centers of Dhiqar province,” al-Nasseri said.

He also added that a sum of over 30,000 volunteer forces have already received military training in Dhiqar’s military training centers.

Early last month, 15,000 fresh volunteer forces joined Hashd al-Shaabi.

“At least 15,000 volunteers from the Dhiqar province and the capital city of Naseriah have joined the Hashd al-Shaabi gunmen and will take up arms against the ISIL,” Naman Ibrahimi, a representative of the province’s security committee said.

Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Units, is an Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organization composed of several, almost exclusively, Shiite militias with up to 100,000 members.

On Saturday, 500 Sunni Iraqis from different tribes of the Western province of al-Anbar joined the army and the popular forces to defend the country against the ISIL terrorist group.

Al-Mesri al-Youm news website quoted Colonel Mohammad Jaloub, one of the commanders of military operations against the ISIL in Anbar, as saying that the trainings of 500 Sunni Iraqis have ended.

According to him, the Sunni volunteers are from different tribes of Anbar province and have ended their trainings in al-Habaniya camp in Eastern Ramadi.

“The cadets will be supplied with necessary weapons by the Iraqi government in the next few days and they will be sent to the battlefront to drive out the ISIL from Anbar,” Jaloub said.

The ISIL Takfiri terrorists currently control shrinking swathes of Syria and Iraq. They have threatened all communities, including Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians, Ezadi Kurds and others, as they continue their atrocities in Iraq.

Senior Iraqi officials have blamed Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and some Persian Gulf Arab states for the growing terrorism in their country.

The ISIL has links with Saudi intelligence and is believed to be indirectly supported by the Israeli regime.