Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on June 9, 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from ISIS.

:: Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced the start of military operations to restore the city of Tal Afar, in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The battle of Tal Afar is the latest efforts from Iraqi armed forces to retake the last largest strongholds of ISIS in the Nineveh province, north of Iraq.

“Here are the heroes are preparing to liberate Tal Afar. I say to ISIS that you have no choice but to surrender or be killed,” Abadi said.

Sources from within the field say that government forces deployed in four areas and closed the escape routes around Tal Afar to the extremists as artillery battles began with intense shelling.