UPDATE - Iraq army opens 2nd phase of anti-Daesh ops in Kirkuk

UPDATES WITH CAPTURE OF 4 VILLAGES

By Ibrahim Saleh, Ali Jawad and Amir al-Saadi

BAGHDAD (AA) - Iraqi forces on Friday recaptured four villages and cut a supply route used by Daesh terrorists in Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk, according to an Iraqi military source.

“Federal Police units and the Hashd al-Shaabi [a unit of the Iraqi army] have liberated the villages of Al-Awasi, Hamad al-Suwaid, Al-Amoudiya and Ghareeb al-Alkaya in Kirkuk’s Hawija district,” Army Captain Jabbar Hassan told Anadolu Agency.

Security forces, he added, had also secured the Shamit Bridge -- which had earlier served as a Daesh supply line -- in Hawija’s northwestern Abbasi area.

“Control of the bridge is strategically necessary to guarantee the movement of military equipment into the Abbasi area,” Hassan said.

Police Lieutenant Suhail al-Nasseri told Anadolu Agency that “fierce clashes” had taken place between Federal Police units and Daesh militants in Abbasi.

The terrorist group, al-Nasseri said, had “used booby-trapped vehicles and rockets in an effort to halt our advance”.

Earlier Friday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the launch of the second phase of ongoing operations aimed at recapturing Hawija.

In a televised statement, al-Abadi had vowed to “liberate every inch of Iraq and crush the Daesh terror gangs once and for all”.

Army Lieutenant-General Abdul Amir Yarullah, who is commanding the operation, said in a statement that the campaign’s second phase was aimed at retaking the district center and several outlying villages.

Along with Kirkuk’s Hawija district, Daesh’s rapidly diminishing presence in the country is now largely confined to the towns of Rawa and Al-Qaim in Iraq’s western Anbar province near the Syrian border.

After overrunning vast territories in both Iraq and Syria in mid-2014, Daesh has recently suffered a string of decisive defeats at the hands of the Iraqi army.

Last month, the group was driven from Tal Afar in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province. One month earlier, the northern city of Mosul -- once the capital of Daesh’s self-proclaimed “caliphate” -- fell to the army after a nine-month siege.