MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The United States has been launching airstrikes on Islamic State (ISIL or Daesh) in Iraq to promote national interests, a commander of a Shiite militia fighting near Mosul told Sputnik on Thursday.
"The US does only what is in its interests … Whatever strikes it is launching against Daesh, it is doing this for its own sake," Irfan Abdulselam Muhammed, a Turkmen commander of the Hashdi al-Shabi militia group, said.
Irfan Muhammed’s group are part of an Iraqi force of some 50,000 fighters engaged in an operation to recapture the northern city of Mosul from Daesh jihadists. He said the US had not provided his militiamen with arms or training.
Turkmen fighters have retaken many villages around the city of Tal Afar, which sits on a strategic route between Mosul and Syria’s Raqqa, an Daesh stronghold. Irfan Muhammed said they were preparing to lay siege to the center of Tal Afar to shut down the route and prevent Islamists from fleeing to Syria.
