Expelling ISIS from Ramadi: Why it matters

Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool initially announced that Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, had been “fully liberated”.

On Monday, following the liberation of Ramadi, Abadi delivered a speech, stating that “If the 2015 was the year of liberation, the 2016 will be the year of success on ISIS”.

Retaking Mosul would effectively mark the end of the caliphate proclaimed by Islamic State in adjacent Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria, according to Zebari.

“This great victory has broken the back of Daesh and represents a launchpad for the liberation of Nineveh”, Salim Al-Juburi 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.

One of the main challenges of the conflict since then has been rebuilding the Iraqi army into a force capable of capturing and holding territory.

The jihadists were said by Iraqi generals to have been forced out of the centre and the local government headquarters in the city west of Baghdad, the loss of which in July was a severe blow to Baghdad.

Iraq’s military flew the Iraqi flag above the central government complex in city of Ramadi, a military spokesman said on Monday, the morning after the army declared the city captured in its first major victory over Islamic State fighters.

In battles since then, Iraq’s armed forces had operated mainly in a supporting role beside Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias.

Their progress was subsequently slowed by heavy IS resistance, booby-trapped buildings and sniper fire.

The U.S. military said it carried out at least 29 airstrikes on Islamic State targets in the past week; three airstrikes hit near Ramadi from Sunday into Monday, wounding 12 IS fighters. The military spokesperson said that the insurgents are still dug into pockets of the city west of Baghdad. “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.

Iraq’s army took the lead in the battle for Ramadi, with the Shi’ite militias prominent in other campaigns held back from the battlefield to avoid antagonising the mainly Sunni population. “I would say that Mosul is the most important territory for Islamic State”.

The IS group still controls much of northern and western Iraq, as well as vast swaths of neighboring Syria.

“This remains a long fight but the coalition’s strategy is succeeding”.

Baghdad has said for months that it would prove its forces’ rebuilt capability by rolling back militant advances in Anbar, a mainly Sunni province encompassing the fertile Euphrates River valley from Baghdad’s outskirts to the Syrian border. Anbar, including Ramadi, was a major focus of that campaign at the height of the 2003-2011 US war in Iraq.