According to the London-based pan-Arab paper al-Arabi al-Jadeed, the Shia Islamist group is to send at least 800 fighters to bolster anti-ISIS forces as they prepare for a long-awaited offensive against the “Islamic State” stronghold of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city after Baghdad.
Hezbollah has already sustained significant casualties fighting alongside regime troops and other pro-regime militias in Syria, against both ISIS and other rebels. If true, such a major deployment in Iraq will further stretch its capacity at a time when Hezbollah is also struggling financially.
It will also further raise tensions within Lebanon itself, where opposition members have accused Hezbollah of dragging the country into the Syrian civil war, and whose Sunni Muslim community has long accused the powerful terrorist group of waging a war against Sunnis on Iran’s behalf.
In the past, Sunni Islamists linked to both Al Qaeda and ISIS have reacted to Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria with waves of suicide bombings, car bombings and other attacks.
According to the report, the 800-strong Hezbollah force will be made up of elite fighters who have received extensive training in terrain similar to that of northern Iraq, where Mosul is located.
The Iraqi army, backed by Iranian-sponsored Shia Islamist militias and some Sunni tribesmen, are currently battling for the city of Tikrit, a key ISIS stronghold and hometown of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The Tikritcampaign is being seen as atest – as well as a potential springboard – for an eventual offensive on Mosul, but anti-ISIS forces are making slow progress against just a few hundred Sunni jihadis, raisingquestions about the viability of a mission to take the far larger and better-defended Mosul.
Hafiz Waheed, a successor to Abdul Rauf Khadim, who died in a US drone strike last month, was killed along with nine others in the Sangin district of Helmand province late on Sunday, according to a Defence Ministry statement.
“All the militants were associated with ISIS,” the statement said, adding that six others were wounded in the strike. Nato forces, who remain in the country in a limited training mission, were not involved in the operation, a spokesman said.
Mr Zamen Ali, a senior Afghan army officer in southern Afghanistan, told AFP that Waheed took over the anti-government militia Khadim had commanded following his death on February 9.
– See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-asia/story/second-commander-linked-isis-killed-afghanistan-officials-20150316#sthash.0rwWETHK.dpuf
Hafiz Waheed, a successor to Abdul Rauf Khadim, who died in a US drone strike last month, was killed along with nine others in the Sangin district of Helmand province late on Sunday, according to a Defence Ministry statement.
“All the militants were associated with ISIS,” the statement said, adding that six others were wounded in the strike. Nato forces, who remain in the country in a limited training mission, were not involved in the operation, a spokesman said.
Mr Zamen Ali, a senior Afghan army officer in southern Afghanistan, told AFP that Waheed took over the anti-government militia Khadim had commanded following his death on February 9.
– See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-asia/story/second-commander-linked-isis-killed-afghanistan-officials-20150316#sthash.0rwWETHK.dpuf
