Iraqi forces start shelling ISIS inside Syria’s Hasakah province

Iraqi pro-government paramilitary forces of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have conducted cross-border artillery strikes against Islamic State militants in eastern Syria, so report Syrian opposition sources.

Reports published over social media by the Euphrates Post opposition media group say that PMU artillery forces shelled ISIS positions at the village of Al-Atshana (just over the Iraqi border) in the southern countryside of Syria’s Hasakah province.

The artillery attack by the PMU was reported on Saturday afternoon.

At the present time, ISIS controls a large swarth of desert countryside in Syria’s far east which is yet to be cleared by US-backed forces. Some sources believe that up to 1,000 jihadist militants are present within the area.

From this pocket, Islamic State fighters often carry out assaults against Iraqi border forces with technicals and car bombs in an attempt to re-infiltrate the country’s western desert region.