The U.S.-led coalition, which includes major European and Arab powers, has been waging an air campaign against Islamic State positions in both Iraq and Syria since a third of Iraqi territory fell to the fighters in mid-2014.
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A member of Iraq’s elite counterterrorism service flashes the “V” for victory sign Tuesday in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar province.
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Even before IS rolled in, Ramadi bore scars from the eight-year US intervention in Iraq.
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“Then over the border in Iraq, in addition to Ramadi – which we have to remember ISIS only took in May this year – the extremists have been pushed out of several cities – Tikrit, Sinjar, Beiji – sometimes by security forces, sometimes by an array of ethnic or religious militias”. Gen. Yahya Rasool announced in a televised statement that Ramadi had been “fully liberated”.
“He is excited about this victory, because he managed to remove this blot from his historical record as commander-in-chief of the armed forces”, said Hisham al-Hashimi, a Baghdad-based analyst who has worked with the Iraqi government.
Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters the capture of Ramadi was “a done deal”, but said the government had to do more to rebuild the city and encourage displaced people to return. “Daesh has planted more than 300 explosive devices on the roads and in the buildings of the government complex”, said Brigadier General Majid al-Fatlawi of the army’s 8th division.
“The most important thing is to secure it (Ramadi) because Daesh can bounce back”, he said in an interview in Baghdad.
Iraqi state TV showed troops, some waving Iraqi flags and others brandishing machine guns, chanting and dancing inside what it described as the government complex. Some could be seen slaughtering a sheep, while others raised their weapons and danced.
Col. Steve Warren, a US military spokesman in Baghdad, told AP that “today’s success is a proud moment for Iraq”.
Now, 19 months later, Iraqi forces are riding high in their first significant victory against ISIS. They’re also dealing with booby-trapped buildings and streets, along with fighting on the outside of the city’s center.
But while the airstrikes eventually helped flush out the militants, they smashed large parts of the city into rubble.
“We were totally surprised today”, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the press.
The United States and the coalition have pledged over $50 million to a United Nations Development Program fund to support efforts to rebuild and stabilize areas seized from Islamic State, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement.
The recapture of the government complex should lift the morale of Iraqi forces, who were badly shaken by the fall of the city in May, which came despite months of U.S.-led airstrikes and advances against IS elsewhere in the country.
The seizure of the government compound in Ramadi followed a week of intense fighting as Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s forces pressed into the center of the heavily defended city after seizing ground on the periphery.
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Over the weekend, al-Abadi had vowed that 2016 would be the year of “final victory” against Daesh in Iraq, saying the next battle against the militant group would be in Mosul, Daesh’s stronghold.
