In the holy Shiite city of Karbala, 100 kilometres (60 miles) to the south of Fallujah, a jihadist-claimed vehicle bombing killed at least three people on Tuesday in the first such attack in more than two years.
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After securing the southern edge of the city on Sunday, Iraqi special forces entered the neighborhood of Shuhada on Wednesday morning, Maj Gen Hadi Zayid Kassar, deputy commander of the counterterrorism forces in Fallujah told The Associated Press.
“I wouldn’t say the different forces in the Fallujah operation are cooperating: They’ve just divided up the battlefield”, said Patrick Martin, an Iraq analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington.
Daesh is resorting to more freakish tactics as the Iraqi army is tightening the noose around the group in Fallujah.
A source who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity said ISIS is using civilians as human shields to deter bombing by warplanes.
Iraqi government forces backed by training, advice and air support from a USA -led worldwide coalition retook Ramadi in December and Hit four months later.
Iraq’s military largely disintegrated in the face of that assault, and in the days that followed, a number of largely Shiite militia groups took up arms against IS and stopped their advance north of Baghdad.
Although other security forces from the federal and provincial police, government-sanctioned Shiite militias and the Iraqi military have surrounded the city, only the elite counterterrorism troops are fighting inside Fallujah at this stage of the operation.
Iraqi forces are trying to retake the city without destroying it or worsening a burgeoning humanitarian crisis, according to military officials.
USA officials say the multiple offensives are straining the Islamic State’s resources and putting stress on its leadership to hold the forces together.
Meanwhile, the local government and provincial council of Anbar called on Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi to immediately withdraw Popular Mobilization forces’ militias from outskirts of Fallujah and leave the battle to free the city to the Iraqi armed forces, local police and Anbar tribal fighters.
Garver acknowledged the presence of YPG fighters with the Syrian Democratic Forces in the Manbij operation but said they were only in a supporting role.
The already overcrowded tent camps have been stretched thin by the arrival in the last 10 days of an additional 10,000 civilians fleeing Fallujah, according to the United Nations and the International Organization for Migration.
“We definitely see increased pressure in Iraq [and] Syria, and the goal is to increase that pressure, then make the enemy fight in multiple directions at once”, Col. Chris Garver, the top USA military spokesman in Iraq, said Wednesday during a briefing from Baghdad.
Suicide bombing attacks by Islamic State militants on Baghdad will continue through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a tactic used increasingly by the terrorist group as it loses territory in other areas of Iraq and Syria, a USA military spokesman said Wednesday. “People who are coming out are giving us the strong impression that we could be talking about maybe 80,000 to 90,000 civilians who are inside”.
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‘We have underestimated how many civilians are in Fallujah, ‘ Grande said.
