Iraqi forces have recaptured the last district of Falluja held by militants from the self-styled Islamic State movement as the general commanding the operation declared the battle complete.
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Iraqi troops entered Fallujah’s northwestern neighborhood of al-Julan, the last part of the city under IS control, said Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi, head of the counterterrorism forces in the operation.
The destruction of the city is extensive.
Iraqi government forces flash the “V” for victory sign in Fallujah, Iraq on June 26, 2016.
The US-led coalition continued to provide air strikes and intelligence support in Falluja, a spokesman said.
But the speed of the fight left aid agencies struggling to serve a massive wave of civilians who fled the city for neighboring displacement camps.
Abdurrahman said that since learning of the abduction and killing of the activists, his group has told other activists to refrain from taking photos or shooting video in Islamic State-held areas.
Addressing Fallujah ” s citizens, Al-Abadi said, “We want to bring peace and stability to the city, and our goal is to save you and save all Iraqis”.
Meanwhile, ISIS remains firmly in control of the northern city of Mosul, which was once home to a million people.
“We suffered a lot, we were displaced from place to place”.
Facing a seemingly inexorable decline of its de facto state, IS had reverted to old tactics and ramped up bombings against key infrastructure and civilian targets.
Fallujah was one of the first major urban centers to fall when ISIS went on the offensive in 2014 and ultimately came to control roughly a third of the country, the Wall Street Journal said.
Combat units mortared Islamic State positions in a western outskirt on Sunday afternoon as the thunder of controlled detonations echoed across the city.
The aid community was largely caught flat-footed however by the scope of the humanitarian crisis that resulted from mass displacement out of Fallujah.
The latest government offensive began on May 23 and has displaced more than 60,000 people, with most people forced to fend for themselves.
Early this week, Karl Schembri of the Norwegian Refugee Council told Morning Edition that conditions at these camps are “getting worse every day”.
10-15% seems like an terrible lot of destroyed city, particularly when nearly no real fighting was reported in the offensive.
There are no figures on the number of civilian casualties during the Fallujah operation, but they are believed to be much lower than when USA forces stormed the city in 2004.
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The commander of the Shiite militia Hadi al-Amiri noted that the liberation of the city was the merit of the combined forces that fought against the terrorists.
