“Your sons, the heroic fighters in the armed forces, are ready to achieve a new victory”, Saad al-Hadithi said in a statement.
Advertisement
He did not say when an assault on the jihadist bastion would begin.
It is encircled by Iraqi forces and a coalition of voluntary forces known as Hashid Shaabi.
Iraq’s military implored residents of ISIS-held Falluja to flee their homes Sunday as soldiers prepare for an operation to wrest the metropolis from the terror group.
Saad al-Hadithi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, said the “liberation” of Falluja would help restore normal life to Anbar, the western province over which Islamic State took almost complete control in 2014.
The army, police and Shiite militias will fight only on the outskirts of the city, he said. The operation will be “very, very soon”, he said, refusing to give a timeline.
The military’s Joint Operations Command said that civilian families would be allowed to leave the city through designated safe passages.
Families who could not leave should raise white flags to mark their location in the city just went of Baghdad, the army’s media unit added, according to the TV channel.
Around 300,000 people lived in the Euphrates river city before the war.
Fallujah became synonymous with death and destruction after it witnessed two of the bloodiest battles of the US occupation in 2004.
Advertisement
Besides Fallujah, ISIS still controls vast swathes of territory and major cities like Mosul in the north, which Iraqi authorities have pledged to retake this year. He said that the USA -led coalition will give air support and that the battle will be “difficult but not impossible”.
