ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A top military official of the Shiite militia known as Hashd al-Shaabi announced Sunday that his group’s mission in Fallujah has been completed. “There is a cooperation between the security forces and the Shiite militia to save the lives of the civilians and the administration of the nearby areas have been handed over to the Anbar police office, ”said Abu Mahdi Muhandis, the deputy chairman of the group. “60,000 people are still trapped in those areas, and more than 3,000 managed to flee,” Muhandis added. Regarding the war with ISIS he said that “an intense fight has occurred between us and ISIS.” “The role of Hashd al-Shaabi is to support the security forces, and if they order us we will enter Fallujah,” he added. The United Nations reported that ISIS has moved families to the center of the city to serve as a buffer between the militants and the Iraqi forces. While people are fleeing ISIS strong-holds inside Fallujah, a video footage that went viral on social media shows Hashd militants treating the men inside Fallujah as hostages and transferring them with blindfolds. More than a week ago the Iraqi Army, together with the Hashd militia and Sunni tribesmen launched an offensive on Fallujah, backed by US-led coalition forces. The city fell to ISIS in January 2014, months before the group captured Mosul and other Sunni areas in a blitzkrieg. ISIS is battling hard to hold onto the city and has planted many IEDs to slow the Iraqi forces’ advance. At least 130 Iraqi soldiers have been killed in the campaign, according to unofficial reports. An estimated 50,000 civilians are still trapped in Fallujah. The Iraqi government had urged those who could to leave and those that couldn’t to fly white flags to show the incoming forces that they posed no threat. The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) estimates that only about 3,000 people have managed to escape Fallujah since the Iraqi operation began.
