BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – The Iraqi premier has thanked top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for his contribution to the fight against Daesh terrorists, saying his 2014 religious decree (fatwa), which mobilized volunteer forces behind army troops on the battlefield, "saved” the Arab state.
In June 2014, shortly after Daesh unleashed its terror campaign in Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani issued a fatwa calling on all Iraqi citizens to defend their country.
 "Citizens who are able to bear arms and fight terrorists, defending their country and their people and their holy places, should volunteer and join the security forces to achieve this holy purpose,” said a Sistani representative in his sermon at Friday prayers in the holy Iraqi city of Karbala at the time.
The fatwa helped Shia fighters, Sunni tribesmen as well as Christian and Yezidi volunteers gather under one umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), commonly known as Hashd al-Sha’abi, to prevent Daesh’s advances.
In the early days of Daesh emergence, Iraqi government forces, who overwhelmed by the terror group’s lightning advances, suffered heavy blows on the battle ground.
However, Hashd al-Sha’abi fighters helped the army regain strength and achieve an upper hand in the fight against Daesh terrorists.
The Iraqi parliament last year recognized Hashd al-Sha’abi as an official force with similar rights as those of the regular army.
In a statement issued on Friday, Abadi offered his "deep thanks” to Ayatollah Sistani for "his great and continuing support to the heroic fighters.” He also stressed that the Shia cleric’s 2014 call "saved Iraq and paved the way for victory” over Daesh.
Abadi’s remarks came one day after he announced an end to Daesh’s "state of falsehood” following the recapture of Mosul’s landmark Grand al-Nuri Mosque, from where the terror outfit proclaimed its so-called caliphate three years ago.
Iraqi government forces on Saturday recaptured more of the last few remaining areas in western Mosul’s Old City as the Daesh terrorist group is on its last breath in the Arab country.
Commander of Nineveh Liberation Operation Lieutenant General Abdul Amir Yarallah stated on Saturday that Iraqi Federal Police forces had wrested complete control over Bab al-Hadid neighborhood and Wednesday market, Arabic-language al-Sumaria television network reported.
The senior Iraqi military commander noted that security personnel had recaptured the Iron Bridge in western Mosul as well.
Yarallah went on to say that Federal Police forces and members of the Interior Ministry's elite rapid response units had managed to liberate al-Shifa district, Ibn Sina teaching hospital as well as its blood bank and radiotherapy ward.
Meanwhile, a local source, requesting anonymity, told the Arabic service of Russia’s Sputnik news agency that Daesh terrorists have abducted hundreds of civilians in Iraq’s oil-rich northern province of Kirkuk to use them as human shields in the wake of government forces’ advances.