Iraqi government forces have advanced into the center of Ramadi as they continue to diminish the Islamic State’s control of the key city.
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Iraqi ground forces, backed by coalition and Iraqi air power, began their advance toward Ramadi’s center late Tuesday morning, intending to clear it of ISIS forces, the Iraqi military said.
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The Iraqi government and its allies in the USA coalition and Iran-trained Hashid Shaabi are fighting continued offensives to regain territories lost to IS forces that spilled over from Syria previous year, particularly in the Anbar, Saladin and Nineveh provinces.
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Iraqi state television reported that Iraqi air force F-16s had killed up to eight Islamic State leaders in Ramadi and the northern city of Hawija in airstrikes since Tuesday. It would provide a major psychological boost to Iraqi security forces after the militant group seized a third of Iraq, a major OPEC oil producer and U.S ally, in a sweeping advance past year.
Iraqi forces have made progress in recent weeks to the outskirts of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, but the final offensive has been slow in coming, despite a sizable advantage in government troops and manpower.
Government forces, allied Shiite militia and Kurdish peshmerga forces are also battling ISIS on other fronts. They’re also asked to film these acts, send the footage to Middle Eastern TV networks like Al Jazeera, and claim they were carried out by Shia forces and Iraqi Security Forces.
Dozens of militants had been killed, said Brig Gen Yahya Rasool, spokesman of the joint operations command, declining to give a casualty toll for the armed forces.
Ramadi fell to the Islamic State in May, in a sudden collapse after a long battle that exposed multiple weaknesses in the government’s ability to fight the militants, including stark military shortfalls and disorganization, and an unwillingness by the government to arm or send reinforcements to help Sunni tribesmen who were fighting the militants.
“I think the fall of Ramadi is inevitable”, said Col. Steven H. Warren, the United States military spokesman here.
The group built tunnels to move without being exposed to the coalition’s daily raids but their supply lines were gradually all severed and military officials estimated last week there no more than 300 fighters left in the city.
The jihadist group still controls Mosul, Iraq’s second city.
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Iraqi military planes dropped leaflets in Ramadi on Sunday, urging residents to leave the city within the next three days. But earlier this month, Iraqi forces retook Tamim, a large neighborhood on the southwestern outskirts of Ramadi, as well as a key Islamic State operations center there. The Pentagon has been training Sunni tribal fighters to make up a “hold” force for the city if and when the Islamic State is fully routed. On Monday, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi thanked military engineers for completing the temporary bridge that allowed troops to cross into the city.
