Qatar welcomes Hawija liberation

Qatar has congratulated Iraq on the liberation of the city of Hawija from the hands of the terrorist organisations.

The Foreign Ministry affirmed that Qatar stands by Iraq in the face of terrorism and extremism.

The statement reiterated Qatar’s firm stance against terrorism as well as its rejection and condemnation of all its forms and manifestations, regardless of causes and motivation.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi announced on Thursday that Iraqi forces have driven the Islamic State group from one of the extremists' last strongholds in the country, the northern town of Hawija.

Al-Abadi made the declaration at a news conference in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron.

"I want to announce the liberation of the city of Hawija today," al-Abadi said, calling it a "victory not just for Iraq but for the whole world."

The Kurdish forces, known as the Peshmerga, and the Iraqi army have kept up coordination in the Hawija area as the last pockets of IS territory are retaken, US coalition spokesman Ryan Dillon told The Associated Press.

"As Iraqi security forces continue to push (IS) up against the Kurdish defensive line ... you're going to find Kurdish Peshmerga forces killing or capturing ISIS fighters that have been pushed out of Hawija city," he said, referring to the extremists by an alternate acronym.

Iraqi forces have driven IS from nearly all the cities and towns it seized in the summer of 2014, including the country's second-largest city, Mosul, which was liberated in July following a months-long offensive. Tal Afar, west of Mosul was retaken by Iraqi security forces in August; hundreds of IS fighters and their families handed themselves over to Kurdish security forces in the days after.
The extremists are now mainly concentrated in a region straddling the Iraqi-Syrian border, and still control a cluster of towns in the far west of Iraq's sprawling Anbar province, where another US-backed Iraqi offensive is underway.