The Iraqi authorities found a mass grave in Al-Shifa neighborhood in the city of Mosul containing the remains of about 60 civilians, including a large number of women who were killed by ISIS extremist group. Meanwhile, Syrian Democratic Forces warned the popular Mobilization Units from entering the Syrian territories, saying it would not be a bridge between the popular crowd and the Syrian regime.
The People’s Protection Units (YPG) warned Hashid al-Shaabi of not trespassing into areas under the YPG’s control in Syria, saying they would respond. Directorate of Rojava [Kurdish controlled areas in northern Syria] Asayish, Jwan Ibrahim, told Asharq al-Awsat that they would not allow the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), also known as Hashid al-Shaabi, to reach areas under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
“We won’t allow [the creation of] any communication line between Hashid al-Shaabi and the Syrian regime government in any circumstance,” Ibrahim said. “There is no difference between Turkey, Iran and the Bashar al-Assad regime because they work against them [the YPG].” The YPG response came after the Iraqi Shia paramilitary group reached the border areas of Syria after they pushed the Islamic State (ISIS) out of a group of villages on the Iraqi side of the border.
Significantly for the Shia force, the gains are seen as a step towards achieving a linkup with the Iranian-backed forces of Assad, giving him a further advantage in fighting the six-year rebellion against his rule. But the territory is connected with land in Syria held by the YPG and the Kurdish-led SDF, a U.S.-backed force focused on fighting ISIS rather than Assad.
In the same context, Four civilians were killed and injured in two separate IED blasts in Hit city, in Anbar province, Sputnik quoted Iraqi news source as saying. According to the source, two civilians were killed, while two others were seriously wounded in two IED blasts in al-Suwaib village in Hit, western Anbar. One of the injured lost his leg in one of the blasts.
Iraqi troops liberated Hit from Islamic State militants in mid-April 2016. Violence in the country has surged further with the emergence of Islamic State Sunni extremist militants who proclaimed an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in 2014.
According to a monthly count released on Thursday by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, violence and armed conflicts left 824 Iraqis dead and wounded during the month of May. Nineveh came on top of the most affected governorates with 354 Iraqi civilians were killed and another 470 injured. Baghdad came in second place with 86 victims and 22 injured. Anbar came third with a total of 136 casualties (47 killed and 89 injured)
The total number of victims marked a rise from 317 Iraqis in April. In March, the victims reached 1115, according to UNAMI. Islamic State is believed to have begun escalating attacks outside the city of Mosul, where the group has been losing ground and personnel since October.
Islamic State militants have closed the streets around Mosul’s Grand al-Nuri Mosque, residents said, apparently in preparation for a final showdown in the battle over their last major stronghold in Iraq.
Dozens of fighters were seen by residents taking up positions in the past 48 hours around the medieval mosque, the site where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an Islamist caliphate in July 2014.
Islamic State’s black flag has been flying from the mosque since the militants captured Mosul and seized swathes of Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014.
U.S.-backed Iraqi government forces retook eastern Mosul in January and began a new push on Saturday to capture the group’s remaining enclave in western Mosul, comprising of the Old City center where the mosque is located, and three adjacent districts alongside the western bank of the River Tigris.
The fall of the city would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the self-styled caliphate. Meanwhile in Syria, Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-air strikes are beseiging Islamic State forces in the city of Raqqa, the militants’ de facto capital in that country.