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10,000 Turkmens join Iraqi Shia forces to fight ISIL: Official

Iraqi Shia Turkmen fighters (file photo)

A senior Turkmen politician says some 10,000 Iraqi Turkmen tribesmen have joined the volunteer Shia fighters to battle the ISIL Takfiri militants operating inside the Arab country.

"Seven thousand Turkmens from Tal Afar in the northern province of Nineveh, more than 2,000 others from the town of Tuz Khormato in the province of Salahuddin, and hundreds from Bashir village in Kirkuk province have joined Shia forces," Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency quoted Torhan al-Mufti as saying on Wednesday.

In late August 2014, Iraqi army troops, backed by thousands of Shia volunteers and Kurdish fighters, liberated the northern town of Amerli, situated about 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad, from the ISIL Takfiri terrorists. 

The residents of the small Shia Turkmen town had been under the ISIL siege since mid-June.

The ISIL started its campaign of terror in Iraq in early June 2014. The heavily-armed militants took control of Mosul before sweeping through parts of the country’s Sunni Arab heartland. 

The terrorists have been carrying out horrific acts of violence, including public decapitations, against all Iraqi communities such as Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians. 

Iraqi soldiers, police units, Kurdish forces, Shia volunteers and Sunni tribesmen have recently succeeded in driving the ISIL out of some areas in Iraq.

MP/HMV/SS


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