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Islamic State militants pushed back as Iraqi troops enter Ramadi
“We went into the centre of Ramadi from several fronts and we began purging residential areas”.
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Though outnumbered, Islamic State fighters have frequently used improvised explosive devices, booby-trapped buildings and suicide auto and truck bombings to redress that battlefield deficit. Around 300 Islamic State fighters are believed to be hunkered down in the northern reaches of the city.
Iraq’s defence minister, Khaled al-Obeidi, said last week that successive operations by the Iraqi security forces and its allies had shrunk the territory held by Isis in Iraq from roughly 40% of the country past year to 17%.
They took full control of Ramadi after a wave of vehicle and truck bomb attacks and have since dug tunnels to be able to move around the city without exposure to daily raids.
The offensive has been ongoing since Ramadi initially fell to the Islamic State, but since early December has gathered momentum.
Iraqi forces have turned the tables on ISIL sympathisers captured in the city of Ramadi, taunting prisoners and forcing them to kneel in the sand and cower in fear.
Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service spokesman Sabah al-Numani said its troops, supported by soldiers, police and Sunni tribesmen, begun the assault on central Ramadi at dawn on Tuesday.
“There is an ongoing operation to control a sector in preparation of the onslaught on the city centre within the coming hours, God willing”, he said.
There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the abduction which took place in a desolate expanse where a number of armed militia operate.
The military launched a counteroffensive to retake Ramadi a month ago, and has since recaptured a western district and the provincial military command headquarters near the city center.
Colonel Warren said that Iraqi forces had crossed the river by deploying “floating bridges” capable of moving fighters and heavy equipment across the water, as American troops had trained them to do.
Separately, five security members were killed and nine others injured in a rocket barrage by IS militants on a military base in Adnaniyah district in western Ramadi, the source said. Three medical officials confirmed the casualty figures.
The Shiite-dominated Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary forces were heavily involved in battles that led to the recapture of towns such as Tikrit and Baiji, but they have remained on the fringes in the battle for the Sunni city of Ramadi.
There are reportedly still thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of civilians inside Ramadi.
Iraqi state television reported that Iraqi air force F-16s had killed up to eight Islamic State leaders in Ramadi and the northern city of Hawija in airstrikes since Tuesday.
“Clearly, this isn’t the behavior of a legitimate government or of a legitimate military force, it’s the behavior of thugs, it’s the behavior of killers and it’s the behavior of terrorists”, Warren said.
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“The fighters in this order are directed to film their actions, distribute the videos, and to do all this in order to discredit both the ISF and the government of Iraq”.