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Iraqi military advances against ISIL in battle for city of Ramadi
The TV did not elaborate on al-Abadi’s visit Tuesday to the Anbar provincial capital but an Iraqi commander, Brig.
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“The expulsion of ISIS (another name for Islamic State) by Iraqi security forces, supported by our worldwide coalition, is a significant step forward in the campaign to defeat this barbaric group and restore Iraq’s territorial sovereignty”, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said.
Iraq’s military have raised the Iraqi flag above the government complex in the western city of Ramadi.
Security officials said the forces still needed to clear pockets of insurgents in the city and its outskirts. The spokesperson added that ISIS fighters still controlled 30 percent of Ramadi and the forces still do not control many districts from which the ISIS fighters have retreated at the current moment.
“2016 will be the year of the big and final victory, when Daesh’s presence in Iraq will be terminated”, Abadi said in a speech broadcast on state television, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State that the hardline group rejects.
Al-Belawi said the fighters retreated mainly to the eastern neighborhoods of Sijariya and Sufiya.
Cautionary tale Michael O’Hanlon, director of research for the foreign policy programme at the Brookings Institution, said the recapture of Ramadi was good news but that it also offered a cautionary tale for what lay ahead in the fight to defeat Islamic State.
The retaking of the government complex was aided by airstrikes led by a US coalition. “We will continue to stand with the Iraqi people until Daesh is defeated”, he said.
Iraqi government forces have been fighting to retake the city – about 90km (55 miles) west of the capital, Baghdad – for weeks. Gen. Yahya Rasool initially announced that Ramadi had been “grabbed from the hateful claws” of ISIL and “fully liberated”.
Soldiers were shown on state television yesterday publicly slaughtering a sheep in an act of celebration.
“Coupled with other recent ISIL losses across Iraq and Syria, including at Tikrit, Bayji, al Hawl, the Tishrin Dam and Sinjar, the seizure of the government center clearly demonstrates that the enemy is losing momentum as they steadily cede territory”, said Army Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the U.S. Central Command commander.
Authorities have not provided casualty figures from the fighting or Ramadi.
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. Mosul, northern Iraq’s main city, is by far the largest population centre in the self-proclaimed caliphate Islamic State rules in Iraq and Syria. The capture of Ramadi would be a major victory for Iraqi troops, but would also test the government’s ability to bridge the country’s sectarian divide.
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Ramadi and Fallujah, Sunni Arab cities where distrust of the Shiite-led government runs deep, were major bastions of the insurgency in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.