“We commend the government of Iraq and the courageous Iraqi forces that are displaying tremendous perseverance and courage in this fight”, US Secretary of State John Kerry said.
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Expelling ISIS from Ramadi: Why it matters
The victory over Ramadi is the first major triumph for the U.S.-trained force since the city was captured by IS militants in May. The militias were held back from the battlefield in Ramadi this time to avoid antagonising the mainly Sunni population.
Security officials said the forces still needed to clear pockets of insurgents in the city and its outskirts. The speaker parliament was one of the first top Iraqi officials to congratulate the security forces on their victory. Ramadi is devastated and a return to normalcy is some way away.
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“It will not be easy to convince families to return to a city that lacks basic human needs”, he told Reuters. The victory in Ramadi follows others in Baiji, north of Baghdad, and Sinjar, the hub of the Yazidi minority in the northeast of the country.
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Ramadi was recaptured by federal forces, with the Popular Mobilization – a paramilitary force dominated by Tehran-backed Shiite militia groups – remaining on the fringes.
“If 2015 was a year of liberation, 2016 will be the year of great victories, terminating the presence of Daesh (IS) in Iraq and Mesopotamia”, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said.
Ben Connable, a senior global policy analyst at the Rand Corporation in Washington DC, said developments in Ramadi marked a political and tactical success, demonstrating the capabilities of the Iraqi counterterrorism service.
Islamic State, also known by the acronyms ISIS, ISIL and Daesh, swept through a third of Iraq in June 2014 and declared a “caliphate” to rule over all Muslims from territory in both Iraq and Syria, carrying out mass killings and imposing a draconian form of Islam.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond congratulated the Iraqi government after the national flag was raised over the provincial capital of Anbar once it was liberated from Islamic State fighters.
“This is the latest in a series of significant losses for the IS”.
British jets have been striking Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria.
Sunni-Shia tensions also remained high, Mr O’Hanlon said, and would continue to complicate the fight against the radical Sunnis of Islamic State.
According to a USA summary of operations, coalition aircraft working with Iraqi forces struck several positions in the Ramadi area on Monday, including a “staging area” for Islamic State vehicle bombs.
The recapture of the government complex should lift the morale of Iraqi forces, who were badly shaken by the fall of the city in May, which came despite months of U.S.-led airstrikes and advances against IS elsewhere in the country.
Members of Iraq’s elite counter-terrorism service place the national flag yesterday on the roof of a building of the government complex after they recaptured this city.
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“Getting a town back that you should not have lost in the first place is not going to matter very much if it has been completely destroyed”, said Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
