Baghdad: Iraqi forces have made significant advances around Ramadi and an operation to retake the city captured by Daesh in May is looming, officers said Wednesday.
“Great people, the hour of victory against the Daesh criminal gangs has come,” said a statement from the Joint Operations Command for Anbar province, of which Ramadi is the capital.
“Your heroic forces are advancing steadily from the northern side... they managed to reach Albu Farraj area,” on the northern edge of the city centre, it said.
The head of the Anbar command, Major General Esmail Mahalawi, told AFP that “Iraqi forces have raised the Iraqi flag on Albu Farraj bridge”, over the Euphrates.
Since the start of October, Iraqi forces have been closing in on Ramadi, gaining ground west and north of the city in particular.
Daesh terrorists took Ramadi, about 100 kilometres west of Baghdad, in mid-May after a three-day blitz of massive suicide car and truck bomb attacks that forced a disorderly retreat by pro-government troops.
After the most stinging setback suffered by Iraqi forces since they started a counter-offensive to regain the territory lost in mid-2014, officials vowed to swiftly retake Ramadi.
Progress has been sluggish, however, with Iraqi forces and the US-led coalition supporting them in Anbar blaming a number of factors, including searing summer temperatures.
The US-led coalition’s spokesman in Baghdad, Colonel Steve Warren, conceded two weeks ago there had been an “operational pause” in efforts to retake Ramadi.
Push into Ramadi
But on Tuesday he said Iraqi forces were now ready to launch an operation inside the city.
“We now believe that battlefield conditions are set for the ISF (Iraqi security forces) to push into the city,” he said, estimating between 600 and 1,000 the number of Daesh terrorists remaining in Ramadi.
According to the daily tallies provided by the US military, 58 air strikes have been carried out by coalition warplanes in the Ramadi area since the start of October.
Four were conducted on Tuesday, a statement said.
They “destroyed five Daesh buildings, five Daesh fighting positions, an Daesh tactical vehicle, two Daesh improvised explosive clusters used as minefields, and denied Daesh terrain at three separate locations,” it said.
The forces battling Daesh around Ramadi are mostly from the regular security forces, including the army, the police and the elite counter-terrorism services.
Thousands of Sunni tribal fighters from Ramadi and elsewhere in Anbar are also active on that front.
Other paramilitary outfits operating under the umbrella of the Hashed Al Shaabi, dominated by Shiite militia groups, have focused their efforts around Fallujah, which is still under Daesh control and lies about half way between Ramadi and Baghdad.
Army and Hashed fighters also launched a broad offensive on Wednesday aimed at reviving efforts to recapture Baiji, a town about 200 kilometres north of Baghdad and the nearby refinery.
The refinery, the country’s largest is thought to have been damaged beyond repair by almost non-stop fighting since the first days of the offensive Daesh launched across Iraq in June 2014.
Control of Baiji is also considered a key step towards isolating key Daesh bastions from one another.
Timeline: Cycle of Violence
■ January 18, 2014: Violence across Iraq, including a series of car bombings and fighting between militants and government troops over control of Anbar province, kills at least 30 people.
■ February 18: A wave of car bombs kills at least 49 people in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Hilla.
■ April 21: Suicide bombings and other attacks across Iraq kill at least 33 people.
■ May 13: Militants unleash a wave of car bombings in Iraq, killing at least 34 people in a show of force meant to intimidate the majority Shiites as they celebrated the birthday of Imam Ali.
■ August 22: At least 64 people are killed, including four Shiite militiamen, after gunmen storm a mosque in Diyala province and open fire on worshippers.
■ August 23: Bombings in Baghdad and the city of Kirkuk kill at least 42 people.
■ September 3: Human Rights Watch says that militants from the Daesh carry out a mass killing of between 550 to 770 Iraqi soldiers captured when the extremists overran the Camp Speicher military base in June. The militant group claims it kills 1,700 in that attack.
■ October 11: A series of car bomb attacks in Shiite areas of Baghdad kills 38 people.
■ October 16: Militants unleash a wave of attacks in Iraq, mainly targeting Shiite areas in and around Baghdad, killing at least 50 people.
■ October 20: Militants unleash more attacks on Iraq’s Shiite community, killing at least 33 people.
■ October 27: Two car bombings in Iraq, including one where a suicide attacker drove a Humvee into a checkpoint manned by Iraqi troops and pro-government Shiite militiamen, kill at least 38 people.
■ December 4: Car bomb attacks across Iraq kill at least 37 people.
■ February 8, 2015: Bombings in Baghdad kill more than three dozen people hours before the city’s longtime curfew comes to an end.
■ February 11: Heavy clashes between security forces and militants in Baghdad and near Tikrit kill 34 people.
■ May 9: Forty inmates in a prison in eastern Iraq, including some convicted of terrorism charges, escape amid a riot that kills at least six police officers and 30 prisoners.
■ June 1: Three Daesh suicide car bombers target a police base in Iraq’s western Anbar province, killing at least 41 police officers and Shiite militiamen.
■ July 17: A Daesh-claimed truck bombing kills at least 115 people, including women and children, at a crowded marketplace in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province. The mostly-Shiite victims were gathered to mark the end of Ramadan.
■ August 10: A Daesh suicide car bomber tears through a marketplace in Baquba, the provincial capital of Diyala, killing 35 people.
■ August 13: A massive truck bomb rips through a busy market in Baghdad’s sprawling Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr City, killing at least 62 people. Daesh claims responsibility for the attack.
— AP
