The KRSC said the high-scale military operation which was launched by around 5,500 Peshmerga fighters before dawn on Sunday “had achieved its key objectives”.
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He said: “A human catastrophe is unfolding in Fallujah”.
A Falluja resident contacted by AFP by telephone said many civilians were eager to see the security forces recapture the city but there was fear of what Isis might do as defeat loomed. The commander spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.
As bloody street-to-street battles claimed the lives of hundreds of fighters in Fallujah last week, Iraqi government officials anticipated a humanitarian crisis brewing around Mosul, Iraq’s second biggest city. The explosion also wounded up to 14 people, a police officer said.
The predominantly Sunni city is about 70 kilometers from the capital, Baghdad.
Iraqi forces have been sealing off Fallujah for months and those still in city – IS fighters and civilians alike – have nowhere to go.
“By launching such attacks, the militants aimed at thwarting our determination and resolution to continue with our victories in Fallujah”, said Arkan Jabbar, a soldier manning a checkpoint in Baghdad not far from where one of the blasts hit.
Iraqi forces battling their way into Fallujah repelled a four-hour counterattack by the Islamic State group on Tuesday, a day after entering the southern part of the militant-held city with the help of US -led airstrikes.
“[Isis] is angry because they don’t feel supported and they have been seen insulting people on the streets, shouting things like: ‘Cowards, you are not with us, ‘” said the resident, who gave his name as Abu Mohammed al-Dulaimi.
The aid effort across Iraq and Syria is massively underfunded but Egeland appealed for emergency funding to meet the immediate needs of the most vulnerable people from Fallujah.
The involvement of the elite CTS marks the start of a phase of urban combat in a city where in 2004 USA forces fought some of their toughest battles since the Vietnam War.
The KRSC claimed that in the course of the two-day operation, 140 ISIS fighters were killed and 14 vehicle bombs were destroyed.
In Erbil, the deputy governor of the province announced on a news show last week that as many as 900,000 refugees might flee war zone areas in Iraq, some from embattled Fallujah and many more from Mosul, according to the Kurdish news site Rudaw.
ISIS cadre attempted to leave the newly-liberated town of Al Rutbah west of Fallujah dressed in women’s clothes, according to USA coalition spokesman Steve Warren.
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“Their treatment of the people is getting worse and worse every day”.
