Iraq forces sweep Ramadi after landmark victory

After surrounding the city for several weeks, the Iraqi army launched an operation to resume control of Ramadi, and then it moved to recapture the governmental complex on Sunday.

But Washington welcomed the victory, which Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said was a step towards the next campaign to liberate the northern city of Mosul in 2016.

Brig. Gen. Ahmed al-Belawi told The Associated Press on Tuesday that engineering teams were clearing bombs from the streets and nearby buildings.

“While Ramadi is not yet fully secure and additional parts of the city still must be retaken, Iraq’s national flag now flies above the provincial government center and enemy forces have suffered a major defeat”, Kerry said.

After nearly eight months Iraqi security forces were able to take back the strategic city, which lies just 90km away from the capital.

Pockets of jihadists may remain, but the army said it no longer faced any resistance in the city and that its main task was to defuse countless bombs and traps.

Iraqi and western forces dealt a “significant blow” to the extremists when their regained control Ramadi yesterday, Phillip Hammond said.

Monday’s recapture of the government complex is certainly likely to lift the morale of Iraqi forces, who were badly shaken by the city’s fall in May, which came despite months of U.S.-led airstrikes and advances against IS elsewhere in the country.

“The Royal Air Force’s close air support operations around Ramadi in recent days have played a key role”.

“The [government] troops only entered the government complex”. This victory in the Sunni-majority Ramadi will strip IS of one of its key locations as it represented a key transportation location for the group to move supplied from Baghdad to its stronghold in Syria.

State TV on Monday showed pictures of soldiers in Ramadi firing their guns in the air and publicly slaughtering a sheep in celebration.

Abadi vowed that Mosul will be the next target of the Iraqi forces, saying, “We are coming to liberate Mosul and it will be the fatal and final blow to Daesh”.

Nineveh is home to Iraq’s second city of Mosul, from which IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed his “caliphate” straddling Iraq and Syria more than a year and a half ago.