According to Colonel Steve Warren, the US military spokesman in Baghdad, an airstrike Wednesday targeting the ISIS headquarters in the city killed Maher al- Bilawi, the top ISIS commander in Fallujah.
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Retaking it promises to be a major challenge for the country’s beleaguered security forces.
Fallujah, a long-time stronghold of Sunni Muslim jihadis, was the first city to fall to the warmongering extremists.
“These people are stuck between Daesh and the Iraqi army’s airstrikes”, Salihi said, asserting that the government did not yet provide civilians a safe exit route from the area.
Col. Steve Warren, speaking via teleconference from Baghdad, said the coalition strike targeting Maher al-Bilawi in Fallujah happened two days ago.
Five days into an Iraqi military operation to push Islamic State fighters out of Fallujah, residents still inside the city are preparing for a long battle, with some saying they fear being trapped between two forces they don’t fully trust.
Dozens of families have managed to flee Fallujah, but numerous thousands who remain are likely to be used as human shields by Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) as Iraqi forces advance.
Shiite militia groups are also involved in the fight but have said they will remain outside the city.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi posted a tweet in Arabic congratulating the people of Iraq on the “liberation of al-Karma” and ordered security forces to protect civilians there.
“Our rules of engagement is not to attack mosques but when a mosque becomes a centre for terror then we deal with it”, Brigadier Yahya said.
It was the first Iraqi city to fall out of government control in January 2014 and was the scene a decade earlier of some of the worst fighting United States forces had seen since the Vietnam war.
The city has been surrounded by pro-government forces for months and concern has been mounting among humanitarian groups that the population was being deliberately starved.
Between 500 and 1,000 Islamic State fighters hold Fallujah, and about 50,000 civilians are trapped inside the city, with the jihadists trying to kill those who attempt to flee.
The prosecutors said some of those detained were planning to go to Syria or Libya and join the Islamic State.
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The UN says hundreds of families were able to flee the city on Friday with the help of government forces. Medicines are exhausted and many families have no choice to rely on dirty and unsafe water sources, added Grande in the statement.
