“Ramadi has been liberated and the armed forces of the counter-terrorism service have raised the Iraqi flag above the government complex”, Brigadier General Yahya Rasool said on television.
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“We are congratulating the Iraqi security forces for their significant progress in Ramadi”, said U.S. Army Col. Chris Garver, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State.
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However, Gen. Ismail al-Mahlawi, head of military operations in Anbar, told the Associated Press that ISIS fighters still controlled 30 percent of the city. Islamic State fighters have retreated from about 70% of the city, but still control the rest; government forces still don’t fully control numerous districts from which the Islamic State fighters have retreated.
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Tima said the rejection was to blame for Abdullah making the risky boat trip that killed his wife and two young sons. She travelled to Belgium, Germany and Turkey, helping give a voice to those displaced by the war in Syria.
After encircling the provincial capital for weeks, Iraqi forces launched an assault to retake it last week and made a final push to seize the central administration complex yesterday.
The operation to reach the center of Ramadi was a significant milestone on the path to clear ISIL from the historic city and the overall campaign to defeat the terrorist group across Iraq, according to a statement released by Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve officials today.
The victory in Ramadi, the latest in a number of losses in Syria and Iraq for the jihadists, was less strategic than symbolic, analysts said Tuesday.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Tuesday visited Ramadi, a day after government forces retook most of the city from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), clinching a major victory and leading the Iraqi premier to vow to rid the country of ISIL by the end of 2016. Soldiers slaughtered sheep in celebration in nearby damaged buildings. Abadi also said “if 2015 was the year of liberation by God willing 2015 would be the year of the final victory and the year of ending the presence of Daaesh (IS in Arabic) on the land of Iraq”.
Islamic State has held Mosul since June 2014 when the group swept through large areas of northern and western Iraq and eastern Syria.
Brig Gen al-Belawi says fighters remain mainly in the eastern neighbourhoods of Sijariya and Sufiya. There was no immediate word on casualties from the fighting.
Such a strategy would echo the USA military’s “surge” campaign of 2006-2007, which relied on recruiting and arming Sunni tribal fighters against a precursor of Islamic State.
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The success also backed President Barack Obama’s contention, rejected by some Republican critics, that airstrikes by the US and allies can succeed against Islamic State when coupled with able local forces on the ground rather than making a major commitment of American troops.
