ISIS punished four women in Kirkuk for using cell phones

Islamic State militants punished four women at their Kirkuk stronghold with biting and whipping for using cell phones without their knowledge, a local source said Wednesday. The source told Alsumaria News that IS’s so-called “women police” raided one house in central Hawija (55 km southwest of Kirkuk) searching for “communication tools locals use to contact their relatives and check on them”.

Finding an SIM card at one part of the house, the female vigilantes arrested four women from the household, and referred them to the group’s judges who sentenced them to three lashes and the fourth, an elder, to ten “bites” in the hands and the back, according to the source. Biting had been a common punishment for civilian women who violate IS militants’ daily life directives.

The Islamic State has executed hundreds of civilians for contacting security forces and collaborating with them at areas under its control, and has always been stringent regarding the use of communication equipment. IS has held Kirkuk since 2014, and the town is one of the next targets for Iraqi forces which managed in July to retake the group’s former proclaimed “capital”: Mosul.

In the same context, Iraqi Federal Police forces killed on Wednesday a senior Islamic State judge in a raid in western Mosul’s Old City as troops continue to comb the city for remnant cells. Federal Police chief Shaker Jawdat said in statements that troops killed Abdul-Sattar Mohamed Ali, aka Abi al-Hakam al-Aawar, when they raided a basement he was hiding at in the Old City district.

According to Iraqi generals. Islamic State has lost more than 25.000 militants, both Iraqis and foreigners, in more than eight months of battles with Iraqi forces which concluded successfully early July with the total recapture of Mosul, the group’s largest stronghold in Iraq. Since the declaration of Mosul’s recapture, Islamic State waged sporadic attacks on security and civilians, while security forces continue to arrest IS sleeper cells both in the city and among refugees.

The Old City was the place where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of the group’s rule in Iraq and Syria in 2014. Its recapture was a symbolic collapse of the group’s self-styled “caliphate”.

On the political side, Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi separately received here today Lebanese Defense Minister Yacoub Riyad Al-Sarraf and the envoy of German Chancellor Eckhard Preveza. During the meetings, they discussed issues of common interest.

On the other hand, U.S. forces have erected a military base near Islamic State’s last stronghold in Nineveh to support imminent Iraqi operations to retake the area, an army official said Wednesday.

Lit. Col. Mahdi al-Khafaji, an official in charge of heavy machinery at the Iraqi army, told Anadolu Agency that the establishment of the base came after consultations by U.S. and Iraqi troops last Friday in Mosul.

Engineering teams are done with 50 percent of work at the base, according to Khafaji, who revealed that special U.S. troops and advisers had arrived to the site in armored vehicles.

Col. Ahmed al-Jubouri, from the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC) told the agency that current works were concentrated on preparing the runway for military aeroplanes that are supposed to provide logistic backing for the operations. He added that several JOC troops had arrived to the facility, including nearly 30 tanks, 190 armored vehicles, 100 tractors, 200 minesweepers and other equipment.

Tal Afar is 65 kilometers away from 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 recently marked Tal Afar as their next target of anti-Islamic State action.