A senior leader of Hashd al-Shaabi (Iraqi volunteer forces) warned that hundreds of Arab militants from the ISIL terrorist group have escaped from Iraq to Syria.
“The ISIL’s repeated failures, growing differences among its ringleaders and infightings among the militants have made the Arab members of the ISIL leave Iraq for Syria in groups,” Jabbar al-Amouri told the Arabic-language Baghdad al-Youm newspaper on Monday.
He added that based on intelligence, over 400 Arab members of ISIL, most of them with Saudi origins, have been transferred to Syria, warning that they are still considered as a threat to Iraq as they have deployed near Iraq’s borders in Syria.
Relevant reports said in August that the US army was trying hard to push back the Iraqi popular forces of Hashd al-Shaabi from Northern and Western Iraq to redeploy the ISIL terrorists at the border with Syria.
The Arabic-language al-Malouma news quoted Tariq al-Asal, one of the commanders of Hashd al-Shaabi in Anbar province, as reporting that the US army had embarked on driving his forces from Anbar and other Northern provinces of Iraq.
It went on to say that the US was not satisfied with the presence of Hashd al-Shaabi in Northern and Western Iraq, specially at the border with Syria and Jordan, adding that the American forces intend to activate the ISIL once more in border regions.
The news website said the ISIL was not able to stand up to the Iraqi army after it experienced heavy defeats in Iraq and Syria in recent months.