Iraqi troops have been advancing under the cover of air strikes by the US -led coalition and Iraq’s air force. Fallujah has been locked in a cycle of conflict since 2003, when it emerged as a bastion of the insurgency against the U.S. Militant attacks and bombings were followed by sweeping arrest raids, which further stoked local grievances.
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For nearly two months, USA intelligence officials have described the Islamic State group as being “at its weakest point since its rapid expansion”, pointing to a number of factors.
Humanitarian groups including Human Rights Watch have raised concerns about a sectarian killing spree if the predominantly Sunni city is freed, since some Iraqi Shiites see all Sunnis as Islamic State collaborators.
A displaced Iraqi man drinks upon his arrival at a safe zone on June 17, 2016 in Amiriyiah al-Fallujah, after Iraqi government forces evacuated civilians from the city of Fallujah due to their ongoing military operation to retake the city from the Islamic State (IS) group.
Over the past year, Iraqi forces backed by U.S-led airstrikes have city-by-city regained large parts of that territory – though the biggest prize, Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, and surrounding territory in the north, remains in IS control, liked to its holdings in neighboring Syria.
In the early hours, special forces pushed into Fallujah’s central al-Nazzal district, which had served as a base for the militants with weapons warehouses and command centers, al-Obeidi said.
Fallujah is an important gain for Iraq’s troops: in January 2014 it was the first city to fall to IS and it was the last of the extremist group’s major strongholds in the large Anbar province. The operation inside the city of Fallujah was being conducted by the Iraqi army, regional and federal police forces as well as special anti-terrorism units.
About 43,000 civilians have fled the fighting in Fallujah, while about 50,000 remain trapped, the United Nations said earlier this week. The day before, coalition troops recaptured the mayor’s office and raised the Iraq national flag.
Iraq launched a major operation on May 23 to retake Fallujah, a bastion of the Sunni Muslim insurgency against U.S. forces that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003, and Shi’ite-led governments that followed.
“Iraqi forces are now in the centre of the city”.
Some 70,000 people are estimated to have fled Fallujah, and another 60,000 are expected to leave over the next several days, according to the UNHCR.
For weeks, families, many with small children, had been fleeing under sniper fire and punishing heat to arrive at camps set up outside the city.
During Friday’s push by the government, thousands of residents fled the city, some swimming across the Euphrates river to reach safety.
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Lt. Gen. Adbulwahab al-Saadi, a commander of Iraq’s counterterrorism forces who is in charge of the Fallujah operation, said in a brief telephone interview that “ISIS has collapsed in Fallujah very fast”, and he said his forces were moving to northern and western neighborhoods.
