The village of Bashir, south of Kirkuk city, was cleared of the Islamic State (ISIS) by the Kurdish Peshmerga and Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi forces Sunday, a Rudaw reporter said from the scene. Hiwa Hussamadeen said that the Peshmerga had evacuated the remains of 18 Hashd fighters who had been killed by ISIS militants in one of their earlier failed offensives. Bashir and five other villages were liberated by Peshmerga force. At 5 am on Sunday Peshmerga finished the preparation for the offensive, and at 6 am they launched the attack to liberate the village from ISIS Hussamadeen explained. "No ISIS fighters left in the village," he added. After Peshmerga liberated Bashir and its surrounding villages 25 ISIS car bombs were also destroyed by the coalition airstrikes. Halkawt Aziz, a Rudaw reporter in Kirkuk, said that after Peshmerga launched the Bashir operation Asayish force in Kirkuk launched several operations in several areas in Kirkuk to target some ISIS secret cell. The Peshmerga forces were called in to intervene in Bashir following several failed attempts by the Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi forces to recapture the village. ISIS attempted to halt the Peshmerga offensive by using rockets and planting mines but ultimately failed to hold onto the town. Coalition forces reportedly took part in the liberation of Bashir, providing air power. Sources said that US B-52 bombers were used for the first time in Bashir in the fight against ISIS. Bashir initially fell to ISIS back in June 2014 after the groups successful takeover of Mosul and large swaths of northwestern Iraq. Hashd al-Shaabi militiamen had long sought to recapture it single-handedly but failed. Shiite Turkmen members of Hashd al-Shaabi reportedly participated in the liberation, initial reports indicated that the Peshmerga done most of the fighting in the village itself. Bashir is a Shiite Turkmen-majority village. When ISIS militants in Bashir launched rockets loaded with chemicals at the neighbouring town of Taza killing three children and wounding hundreds there in late March there was renewed pressure to liberate the town.
