‘Friendly fire’ by Iraqi drone kills 9 anti-DAESH fighters
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BAGHDAD, Jan 10, (Agencies): An Iraqi drone strike killed nine members of the pro-government Popular Mobilisation paramilitary force near Tikrit in an apparent case of so-called “friendly fire”, a spokesman said Sunday. Ahmed al-Assadi, spokesman for the Hashed al-Shaabi umbrella group that includes mostly Tehran-backed Shiite militias, said the strike occurred on Saturday at 10:00 pm (1900 GMT). “The initial report is that an Iraqi strike erroneously identified our forces as enemy forces and carried out a strike,” he told AFP. “The drone struck with a first missile and then two more seven minutes later,” he said.
Assadi said nine members of the Ketaeb Jund al-Imam (The Battalions of the Imam’s Soldiers) militia group were killed and 14 wounded. The Islamic State (IS) group was defeated in Tikrit and most parts of Salaheddin province last year but it maintains positions in the desert regions west of the Tigris. “We were under attack, we called for ground support but when it arrived, the drone struck,” said Assadi. He said the incident occurred near the sprawling Speicher military base, which lies northwest of Tikrit. He said Prime Minister Haider al- Abadi had immediately opened an investigation into the incident.
The “war media cell”, which provides updates on the battle against IS on behalf of the Hashed as well as the interior and defence ministries, also said the premier’s offi ce had launched an enquiry. The US-led coalition which provides air support to ground forces battling IS said its aircraft were not active in the area at the time.
The US ambassador to Iraq has denied reports that the United States has been carrying out helicopter raids against Islamic State militants in northern Iraq. “There have recently been reports of US helicopter raids in Hawija and Kirkuk. As Defense Minister Obaidi and numerous other Iraqi offi cials have stated, reports of these raids are untrue,” Stuart Jones said in a statement on Saturday. Recent reports of more than half a dozen air raids led by US special forces have been decried by powerful Iranianbacked Shiite militias and other critics of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi as violations of Iraqi sovereignty. “I want to stress what I have said many times before: Iraqi sovereignty is sacred and must be respected. All coalition activities conducted in Iraq are and will be in consultation with the Iraqi government,” Jones said, referring to the US-led coalition bombing Islamic State targets and training Iraqi forces. Iraqi parliament speaker Salim al- Jabouri told Reuters on Thursday foreign special forces have been conducting raids behind Islamic State lines in Hawija ahead of an offensive planned later this year to retake Mosul, the largest city under Islamic State control. He said the raids were carried out “from time to time” and “supported by Iraqi forces” but did not specify whether the United States had played a role or how many had occurred. Dubai-based al-Hadath TV and Iraqi media have reported several air raids over the last month in and around Hawija, 210 km (130 miles) north of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, Islamic State militants left Ramadi’s streets and buildings boobytrapped with bombs, hampering efforts to rebuild the city two weeks after Iraq’s elite counter-terrorism forces claimed victory against the militant group there, officials said. Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, was touted as the first major success for Iraq’s army since it collapsed in the face of Islamic State’s lightning advance across the country’s north and west 18 months ago.
The militants have been pushed to Ramadi’s eastern suburbs, but almost all of the city, which was battered by US-led air strikes against Islamic State, remains off-limits to its nearly half a million displaced residents, most of whom fled before the army advance. “Most areas are now under the security forces’ control,” Anbar governor Sohaib al-Rawi said on Saturday at a temporary government complex southeast of the city. “Most of the streets in Ramadi are mined with explosives so it requires large efforts and expertise,” he said. Specialised bomb disposal teams from the police and civil defence force would begin work “soon”, he said.
The counter-terrorism forces which spearheaded the city’s recapture are securing only main streets and tactically important buildings, security sources said. They have built up earth banks at the entrance of central neighbourhoods deemed clear of militants but still laden with explosives, and marked buildings’ exteriors as “mined”, the sources added. Snipers have also slowed progress. Iraqi forces clear them by calling in devastating airstrikes — more than 55 in the past two weeks, according to the coalition. On Saturday they routed militants from the Mal’ab neighbourhood, adding the last major district in Ramadi’s city centre to their control, said commander Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi. Iraqi forces withdrew from Ramadi in May last year, allowing Islamic State to take control, the group’s biggest gain since sweeping across the Syrian border a year earlier and declaring it was establishing a caliphate.
Islamic State fighters are still holed up in a roughly 10 km (6 mile) stretch east towards Husaiba al-Sharqiya using agricultural lands to evade detection, security sources said. It could take at least 10 days to clear those areas. As the sun sets over Iraq’s southern city of Basra, Ahmed Hilal rushes to lock his door. At night, every knock sends his heart beating faster. In the morning, the father of three or someone he trusts walks his children to school, barely five minutes away. Fear has become part of daily life amid a surge of violence in Basra, where ram-
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