Military making progress in fight for Ramadi

On Tuesday, Iraqi security forces reported progress in recapturing some areas in the western city of Ramadi, 130 kilometres west of Baghdad, from ISIL militants.

In June a year ago, Daesh overran Mosul – the country’s second largest city – before moving on to capture additional territory in both Iraq and Syria.

He added that the U.S.-led coalition has provided steadfast support to the Iraqi government, conducting more than 630 airstrikes, training security forces, and providing both advice and specialized engineering equipment to clear bombs and booby traps.

CNN’s Becky Anderson, reporting from the United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi, noted the coalition spokesman used careful wording in the statement that pointed out the city government center had been retaken.

Victory in Ramadi, capital of Anbar province in the Euphrates River valley west of the capital, deprives IS militants of their biggest prize of 2015.

Now, the Iraqi government says it plans to have a flag-raising ceremony at the recaptured compound on Monday and is predicting the complete retaking of Ramadi in the coming days. He said IS fighters still control 30 percent of Ramadi and that government forces do not fully control many districts from which IS fighters have retreated.

Ramadi fell to IS in May, marking a major setback for Iraq and the U.S. The White House is describing the progress in retaking Ramadi as a testament to the “courage and determination” of the Iraqi security forces.

Reasserting control over Ramadi would allow Iraq to cut off supply lines to Falluja and would make it very hard for the Islamic State to continue to hold that city.

The government has not put out an official death toll for government forces.

Pierre-Jean Luizard, director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research in France, and the author of a recent book about the Islamic State, cautioned against seeing Ramadi as a turning point.

The city in central Iraq has strategic importance, with roads into Jordan and Syria, and Anbar province is the heartland of Iraq’s Sunni Muslim population. While he initially swung behind Shi’ite militias to help halt Islamic State’s onslaught, he has since tried to implement reforms to reduce the power of sectarian parties, angering many political leaders.

Pockets of fighters for IS – also known as Isis, Isil and Daesh – remain dug in in other sectors, however.

The fighters from the Islamic State fled the government compound around midday. Washington had hoped that a potentially decisive battle for that city would take place in 2015 but it was pushed back after the fighters seized Ramadi in May.

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. Ramadi and nearby Fallujah, which is controlled by IS, saw some of the heaviest fighting of the eight-year US intervention in Iraq.

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