Iraq: ISIL Executes Several Own Commanders for Fleeing Battlefield

The source said that ISIL arrested 12 commanders of its forces in Tal Afar and executed them on charges of fleeing the town.

The source added that after their defeat in Mosul and losing a large number of fighters the ISIL’s front in Tal Afar has collapsed.

Relevant reports said on Saturday that clashes broke out between members of the Takfiri ISIL terrorist group at a mosque in Northwestern Iraq, where four of the terrorists were killed or injured in the infighting.

Al-Sumaria television network on Saturday cited a local source as saying anonymously that heavy gunfire had broken out at the mosque in the Northwestern Iraqi province of Nineveh’s Tal Afar District.

The source added that ISIL, which suffered crushing defeats at the hands of the Iraqi military in the recent past, was witnessing a breakup and increasing internal differences gave way to open clashes.

The source declared that the group went about arresting some of its elements after the recent confrontation.

ISIL announced Tal Afar town, West of Mosul, as an independent state from the group’s proclaimed caliphate, according to a local source from Nineveh province.

 “ISIL leadership in Tal Afar declared in a brief statement that the town has become an independent state from the caliphate and threatened strict punishment against whoever violates order,” the source said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source added that “Tal Afar was completely controlled by Arabs and foreigners with no local leaders in the wake of the mass executions that was carried out over the past few weeks.”

The group, according to the source, considered the town as independent with its leaders, which marks a sudden development that comes one day after the group announced the murder of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The Iraqi Army announced Monday that Baghdad forces recaptured the key town of Mosul, ISIL’s de facto capital in the Arab country, after 9-month of bloody battle with the Takfiri terrorists in Nineveh province.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced in October 2016, the start of a military operation to recapture Mosul.

Baghdad declared earlier in January that the Iraqi troops managed to capture the Eastern part of the key ISIL stronghold in Nineveh province. The Iraqi Army started a new phase of its military operation late February to drive the ISIL terrorists out of their bastion in the Western part of the city of Mosul.

The second largest city in Iraq fell to the ISIL group in 2014, when the Takfiri terrorists began a campaign of death and destruction in the Arab country.

The United Nations predicted that it will cost more than $1 billion to repair basic infrastructure in Mosul. In some of the worst affected areas, almost no buildings appear to have escaped damage.

An estimated 862,000 people have been displaced from Mosul ever since the battle began nine months ago. A total of 195,000 civilians have also returned to the liberated areas of Eastern and Western Mosul.