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 a year ago.
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Since overrunning Ramadi, just 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Baghdad, the Islamic State group has destroyed all the bridges around the city. However, Iraqi military officers asserted that the entire city will be pacified by December 25.
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Brig. Gen. Bilawi said Wednesday that Iraqi troops had taken up cover positions about 700 meters from the government compound waiting for the “zero hour” to move into the downtown office complex.
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However, the Iraqi military and allied militias have been foiled before by IS’s tactics of improvised explosive devices, bomb-laden trucks, and booby traps, as well as the destruction of all major bridges into the city.
Zheming, please tell us about Ramadi. The American forces have been training the Iraqi security forces for about a year now, which has definitely helped get them ready for this day and this fight to retake their city of Ramadi.
“They’ve tried but they’ve had less success for several reasons”, said Colonel Steve Warren, spokesman for the US-led coalition that has been carrying out daily air strikes.
Dozens of families that had stayed in central Ramadi, many of them prevented from leaving by IS when the security forces launched their big push on Tuesday, have managed to flee.
It said that 10 militants were killed, but did not indicate whether there were any casualities among Iraqi forces.
Ramadi has strategic importance, because Anbar is the heartland of Iraq’s Sunni Muslim population and because the city is close to Baghdad.
The lack of noticeable progress in retaking Ramadi, which lies about 60 miles from the capital Baghdad, exposes the limits of the coalition’s strategy of fighting the extremists only by air in support of Iraqi ground forces.
Backed by the US-led airstrikes, the anti-terrorism forces announced the capture of the al-Bakr neighborhood to the south of the city, with fierce fighting in nearby areas such as al-Thubat and al-Aramil.
Civilians in the city remain yet another obstacle blocking the military’s advance.
IS has lost control of several key towns in Iraq to government and Kurdish forces since over-running large swathes of the country’s west and north in June 2014.
If they regain full control, it will be the second major city after Tikrit to be retaken from IS, also known as ISIS.
The fighting has mostly taken place around the former government headquarters, a key position that the government forces are trying to retake.
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In a statement on Thursday, Dhafir al-Aani, a Sunni member of Parliament, praised the decision to exclude the Shiite militias, saying it had made the battle for Ramadi “empty of sectarian complications”. The group also controls a large part of neighboring Syria, where it has set up a de facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa.
