Abadi had arrived in Ramadi by helicopter.
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A few hours later, military spokesman Brig.
Iraqi state TV reported that Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was in Ramadi but offered no further details.
But after Monday’s success in the latest offensive to retake Ramadi, Abadi went on Iraqi television to declare 2016 will be the year Islamic State will be driven out of Iraq.
Then the city will be slowly encircled in the summer, and air strikes will intensify on IS leadership and logistical targets.
“We are coming to liberate Mosul and it will be the fatal final blow to Daesh [Islamic State]”.
Ramadi had been one of the largest cities under the extremist group’s control, along with its self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa, Syria. “So to paint this as a strategic victory against Islamic State I think is a gross exaggeration”.
Kurdish forces are east, north and west of Mosul while Iraqi security forces and Shia militia fighters are in Baiji to the south.
“Peshmerga is a major force; you can not do Mosul without Peshmerga”, he said, referring to the armed forces of Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous northern region close to Mosul.
“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.
Abadi’s boasting on Twitter of the “liberation” of Ramadi, combined with celebrations on state media, follows months of intense bombardment by USA war planes and weeks of street-to-street fighting by U.S. armed and trained Iraqi special forces units.
“The expulsion of Isil (another name for IS) by Iraqi security forces, supported by our global coalition, is a significant step forward in the campaign to defeat this barbaric group and restore Iraq’s territorial sovereignty”, the Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter as saying.
The government sidelined the PMF in the Ramadi battle to ensure air support from the US which is reluctant to be seen fighting on the same side as the Iranian-backed militias.
He said the U.S.-led coalition, which includes major European and Middle Eastern powers, had carried out more than 630 airstrikes in the area, provided training and advice to Iraqi units, and contributed specialized equipment to clear explosives.
Eid Ammash, a spokesman for the Anbar provincial council, said in a telephone interview that troops had been careful about entering the government complex in Ramadi to minimize losses, and a police commander, Mazin al-Dulaimi, said forces had to make sure suicide bombers and snipers were no longer inside.
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Video of Ramadi’s city center and other nearby districts showed widespread destruction, and many neighborhoods appeared to be in ruins.
