In Tuesday, May 9, 2017, file photo, smoke rises during heavy fighting between Islamic State militants and Iraqi special forces in the industrial area of west Mosul, Iraq. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)
ishtartv.com - washingtontimes.com
By Carlo Muñoz -
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
The
Pentagon on Tuesday warned the Iraqi militias fighting alongside Iraqi forces
to liberate the Islamic State-held city of Mosul to fall in line
behind commanders in Baghdad,
amid rising sectarian tensions between Iranian-backed Shia militias and Kurdish
peshmerga in the war-torn country.
“Everyone
needs to follow [Baghdad‘s]
lead and fall in behind them,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said,
regarding rising tensions between Shia paramilitaries known as the Popular
Mobilization Units or PMUs, and peshmerga.
Capt. Davis
acknowledged the challenges facing Iraqi and coalition commanders in managing
such a diverse fighting force. But he reiterated the chain of command in the
fight against the group known as ISIS or ISIL in Iraq runs through Baghdad, and all
participants in that fight needed to respect that fact, he said during
Tuesday’s briefing at the Pentagon.
His
comments come as tensions have come to a head in the Yazidi enclave of Sinjar
in northern Iraq’s
Nineveh province this month, as PMU fighters continue to clear ISIS-held
territory in and around the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, roughly 50 miles
east of the terror group’s besieged Iraqi capital of Mosul.
Despite
being accused of extrajudicial killings in previous anti-ISIS offensives in
Fallujah and Anbar province, Baghdad federalized
the PMUs ahead of the Mosul
offensive and tasked them with leading the attack on the western flank of the
city when the operation kicked off last October.
As
Iraqi forces close in on the remaining ISIS redoubts in Western Mosul, PMU forces have
begun liberating Yazidi-majority areas near Sinjar, despite protests by Kurdish
President Massoud Barzani and local peshmerga commanders.
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