Separately, Iraqi security forces made fresh gains against Daesh terrorists in the city of Husaybah, which lies seven kilometers (4.5 miles) east of Anbar’s provincial capital city of Ramadi, on Sunday.
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“By controlling the complex this means that they have been defeated in Ramadi”, government spokesman Sabah al-Numani told Reuters.
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He said this heralded the defeat of IS in the city, although he admitted there could be pockets of resistance.
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Ramadi lies about 100 kilometres west of Baghdad and is the capital of Anbar, which is Iraq’s largest province and borders Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
The city, and others in Anbar province, was the scene of fierce battles between U.S. military troops and IS’s predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, during the years following the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
The allied forces launched a final offensive to retake the area, Islamic State’s last bastion in Ramadi, on Tuesday.
Iraq’s military said earlier in the week that government forces expect to be in control of the city in a few days.
U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition backing Iraqi forces, said: “The clearance of the government centre is a significant accomplishment and is the result of many months of hard work”.
“The most important thing is to secure it (Ramadi) because Daesh can bounce back”, he said in an interview in Baghdad, using an Arabic acronym to refer to Islamic State.
The Iraqi army was able to recapture Ramadi without depending upon the militas, who were kept off the battlefield as a precaution against a potential scuffle with Sunni population.
The coalition also provided specialized engineering equipment to clear improvised explosives and auto bombs, and provided advice and assistance at multiple Iraqi Army headquarters, he said.
It is not clear how many civilians are left in the area.
Ramadi’s recapture would mark a major reversal for the jihadist group.
“IS” pushed out government forces in May in an embarrassing defeat for Iraq’s beleaguered army after it collapsed previous year in Mosul, handing Iraq’s second largest city to “IS”.
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Dislodging the militants from Mosul, which had a pre-war population close to two million, would effectively abolish their state structure in Iraq and deprive them of a major source of funding, which comes partly from oil and partly from fees and taxes on residents.
