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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

IS has cost Iraq more than $100 billion: PM

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KARBALA: The IS group’s occupation of northern Iraq and the battle to defeat it has caused more than $100 billion worth of damage, Prime Minister Haider al Abadi said on Saturday.


He was speaking during a visit to Karbala.


“The damage caused by the IS occupation of Iraqi cities already amounts to more than $100 billion,” Abadi said. “That’s just the damage to the economy and infrastructure.”


IS seized around a third of Iraq and parts of Syria in a sweeping 2014 advance.


But its self-declared “caliphate” has since been decimated by multiple


offensives and squeezed into a pocket of territory on the Iraqi-Syrian border.


Iraqi forces launched an operation on Saturday to retake the last IS-held towns in Iraq, including the Euphrates valley town of Rawa and nearby villages.


The assault also aims to “clean open areas in the desert” of western Iraq, said Abadi, who is also head of the armed forces.


Meanwhile, Iraqi forces have launched a ground attack to expel IS from the last areas still under the militia’s control near the border with Syria, Abadi said.


Army troops and tribal fighters are participating in the attack targeting the towns of Rawa and Rumana, the campaign chief Lieutenant-General Abdul Amir Rasheed said in media remarks. — Agencies


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