Iraqi forces on Tuesday recaptured from the Daesh group the first two districts of terrorist bastion Tal Afar, as the Pentagon chief visited Baghdad in a show of support.
The United Nations said thousands of civilians have fled Tal Afar in the two days since the start of the broad offensive against Daesh, AFP reported.
In remarks before meeting in Baghdad with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he wanted to keep the spotlight on eradicating the terrorists.
“Right now our focus is on defeating ISIS (Daesh) inside Iraq, restoring Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said the Pentagon chief.
Iraqi troops routed Daesh in Mosul in July after a grueling nine-month fight for Iraq’s second city.
They launched the offensive on Sunday to recapture Tal Afar, once a key Daesh supply hub between Mosul – around 70 kilometers (45 miles) to the east – and the Syrian border.
The terrorists inside Tal Afar, estimated to number around 1,000, responded with artillery fire Tuesday as the Iraqi forces massed outside the city.
Army, police and units of the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary coalition later took “full control” of Al-Kifah and Al-Nur districts in Tal Afar, the Hashed said.
The Iraqi forces had encircled the city despite what Hashed spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi described as “intense” fighting. He said the fighting for the city would likely last weeks.
The International Organization for Migration said its teams were “responding to thousands of civilians fleeing Tal Afar since the launch of the military campaign”.
Since Friday, more than 3,000 people had arrived at two IOM emergency sites, many with just the clothes on their back, said the UN agency.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said it had received some 9,000 people at the Hamman Al Alil transit center in the past week, and it was preparing to accommodate nearly 30,000 more.
Mattis declined to make any predictions on the battle.
“ISIS’s days are certainly numbered, but it’s not over yet and it’s not going to be over anytime soon,” he said.
Iraqi forces had “fought like the dickens in Mosul, (it) cost them over 6,000 wounded, somewhere over 1,200 killed,” he noted.
Yet that comeback restored the confidence of the Iraqi forces after their shock loss of Mosul to Daesh in 2014.