The Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has arrived in Ramadi a day after his government declared the city liberated from Islamic State.
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Iraqi forces on Monday raised the national flag above the main government complex in Ramadi after days of deadly fighting against ISIL.
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“2016 will be the year of the big and final victory, when Daesh’s presence in Iraq will be terminated”, Abadi said in a speech broadcast on state television, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State that the hardline group rejects. “We are coming to liberate Mosul, and it will be the fatal and final blow”.
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ISIS seized Ramadi in mid-May.
Iraqi state TV was replaying Monday’s footage from Ramadi, showing troops, some waving Iraqi flags and others brandishing machine guns, chanting and dancing inside what it described as the government complex in central Ramadi.
Tikrit: Located 160km north of Baghdad, it was recaptured in April by Iraqi troops, police and Shi’ite-dominated paramilitaries.
The number of dead and wounded on both sides was unclear and most civilians had taken cover inside a hospital.
ISIS’ defeat in the central Iraq city of Ramadi is only the terrorist group’s latest blow this year.
In November, Isis lost the city of Sinjar, the ancestral homeland of the Yazidi minority, to an offensive led by the Kurdish peshmerga and backed by U.S. warplanes.
Palmyra: This ancient Syrian city 205km east of Damascus was taken by ISIS on May 21. More than 70 U.S. troops were killed in the five-month fight led by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps.
Mosul, northern Iraq’s main city, is by far the largest population centre in the self-proclaimed caliphate ISIS rules in Iraq and Syria. The provincial headquarters had been the epicentre of the fighting since Iraqi forces punched through ISIS defences a week ago to cap a months-long operation to retake Ramadi.
In the interview, Zebari also said the battle of Mosul would be “very, very challenging”, adding that the Iraqi army may also need to draw on local Sunni forces and possibly Shia volunteers from the Popular Mobilization Units in support roles.
“There are other military sources that say this might be a bit unrealistic”, Alice says, “based on the fact that Fallujah and Mosul are heavily populated”, unlike Ramadi and other ISIS-controlled cities that have been retaken.
The Iraqi military forces must first finish their work in Ramadi. “We will reconstruct the city to bring the displaced back to their homes under the protection of Iraqi security forces”. He moved through the city with the Anbar governor and top security officials in a convoy of Humvees, crossing a floating bridge used by the armed forces last week to retake the city centre.
Then in November, al-Abadi’s forces announced a major push to recapture Ramadi, warning residents to leave and advancing quickly across the Euphrates River.
After encircling the provincial capital for weeks, Iraqi forces launched an assault to retake it last week.
Their progress was subsequently slowed by heavy IS resistance, booby-trapped buildings and sniper fire.
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The French president, François Hollande, said the reconquest of Ramadi was the most important victory yet in the fight against the jihadis, while Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said “it shows once again that Isis is not unbeatable”.
