Iraqi Forces Start Offensive to Retake Tal Afar From ISIS<br />As an ethnic Turkmen city whose Shiite residents had been killed or expelled, Tal Afar became caught up in the regional rivalry between Turkey, which has historical<br />and ethnic connections to the city, and Iran, the region’s pre-eminent Shiite Muslim power.<br />"The battle is near, and victory is coming." When the battle began last fall for Mosul, the largest city in either Iraq or Syria<br />that had fallen to the Islamic State, the fate of Tal Afar took on outsize importance because of the concerns of regional powers.<br />20, 2017<br />BAGHDAD — A month after liberating Mosul from the Islamic State, Iraqi forces began a new offensive<br />Sunday to retake Tal Afar, one of the last big cities in Iraq under control of the extremists.<br />As the operation for Mosul began, Iraqi Shiite militias loyal to Iran moved toward Tal Afar,<br />raising concerns of a sectarian blood bath and the possibility of intervention by Turkey.<br />As he has done frequently during the three-year military campaign against the Islamic State, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi appeared on state television in the dark hours<br />— close to 3 a.m. Sunday, a time chosen to heighten the drama — wearing a black uniform in the style of Iraqi special forces to announce that the operation had begun.<br />On Saturday, Iraqi airplanes dropped leaflets over Tal Afar, telling residents<br />that security forces were moving toward them, and that their city would soon be rid of the "evil" of the Islamic State.
