“Iraqi forces entered Fallujah under air cover from the global coalition, the Iraqi air force and army aviation, and supported by artillery and tanks”, said Lieutenant General Abdelwahab al-Saadi, the commander of the operation.
Advertisement
Hundreds of residents, mostly women and children, fled Falluja Friday as Iraqi soldiers attacked to drive ISIS from the city, the Iraqi military said.
“The troops and allied Shia and Sunni paramilitary units, known as Hashd Shaabi, started their advance in the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, to free it from IS group”, Xinhua news agency quoted Sabah Nu’man, spokesman of anti-terrorism force, as saying.
Fallujah fist fell to IS more than two years ago and is one of the group’s last strongholds in western Iraq.
The offensive is causing alarm among worldwide aid organisations over the humanitarian situation in the city, where more than 50,000 civilians remain trapped with limited access to water, food and health care.
The recapture of Karma, about 16 kilometers (10 miles) northeast of Falluja, brought most of the territory east of the city under government control.
A auto bomb exploded at a market in northeast Baghdad on Monday, killing at least nine people and injuring 17 others.
Security forces evacuated about 760 people who escaped from the eastern and southeastern regions of Falluja, the military said.
Iraqis check the damage after a bombing attack in northern Baghdad’s Sadr City, in Iraq, May 17, 2016.
Three blasts shook parts of the Iraqi capital Monday morning, according to Iraqi security sources.
A suicide vehicle bomber struck an outdoor market in the town of Tarmiyah, about 50 kilometres (31 miles) north of Baghdad, killing seven civilians and three policemen, another police officer said, adding that 24 people were wounded in that bombing. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, which bore all the hallmarks of the Islamic State group.
Further north, thousands of Kurdish Peshmerga troops are involved in an offensive to retake formerly Kurdish villages near the ISIS-held town of Mosul, Kurdish officials say.
Advertisement
Across the border in Syria, a USA -backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces last week pushed into territory north of Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS.
