Northern Iraq offensive

Iraqi forces have retaken almost all of Tal Afar, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL) stronghold in the country's northwest, the Iraqi military said in a statement on Aug. 27.
Fighting was ongoing in al-'Ayadiya, a small area just outside the city. Iraqi forces were waiting to retake the city's surrounding areas to declare a complete victory.
   

Saudi Arabia and Iraq plan to open the Arar border crossing for trade for the first time since 1990, when it was closed after the countries cut ties following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, Saudi local media reported on Aug. 15.

Iraq has begun an aerial bombardment of Tal Afar, a town under Islamic State control west of Mosul, Baghdad-based al-Sumariya TV said on Tuesday, citing an Iraqi Defence Ministry spokesman.
The ground attack to try to take the city should start when the air campaign is over, the spokesman, Mohammed al-Khodari, said, according to the TV channel.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud - Photo: Twitter / @sudouest

The recapture of Mosul is an achievement of the Iraqi people while the US is trying to highjack it and claims it was them who "led that war," Iraq's Vice President Nouri al-Maliki has told the RIA Novosti news agency.

Adel, 15, hasn't seen his parents for the past nine months, but that was the price to pay to escape the brutal rule of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists in his northern Iraqi hometown.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still alive and hiding in Syria, despite Russian reports of his death, Iraqi and Kurdish counter-terrorism officials have said, quoted by The Telegraph.co.uk.

Nearly nine months after the start of the offensive against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to retake Mosul after three years, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory and government control of his country's second largest city on July 9.

Iraq has received congratulations from several countries, including Turkey, for its landmark victory over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Mosul, a city where the jihadist group had first declared its so-called caliphate. 

Turkey has said it welcomes the re-capture of Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) by the Iraqi army and expressed its readiness to contribute to the restructuring of the war-torn city. 

Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a U.S. general said on July 8, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city.