Iraqi army links Ramadi to key army base

The Iraqi government and military have announced that they have fully recaptured and regained full control of the city of Ramadi, which was previously taken over by the Islamic State (IS).

“All of Ramadi has now been liberated”, said al-Rawi, the Anbar governor, adding that the handover of authority to local police from the military was going smoothly.

“(Our forces) also managed to open the road from Ramadi to Baghdad which passes through al-Khaldiya”, the statement added, referring to a highway that links the city to the Habbaniya base where U.S.-led coalition forces are located.

The latest extension of the security forces in Ramadi came as the troops continued their clearing operations in the eastern part of the city, as the extremist militants densely planted bombs in buildings, whilst clashes continued against small groups of IS militants who are using the buildings as hideouts, the source said.

Ramadi is the capital of western Iraq’s Anbar province and was the setting of bloody battles between USA troops and Sunni insurgents during the American occupation of the country.

Security forces are now dismantling networks of improvised explosive devices left behind by IS militants.

The Iraqi army had declared the liberation of Ramadi from ISIS earlier in December.

Iraqi pro-government forces drive their armored vehicles in the Jwaibah area, on the eastern outskirts of Ramadi, on February 8, 2016.

Iraqi forces have worked slowly and deliberately to isolate other Islamic State-held cities such as Tikrit and Ramadi before launching assaults to retake them, and cutting off Mosul will likely take longer than either.

A Kurdish official said that most of the soldiers deployed to Makhmur, which is located within territory controlled by Iraqi Kurdistan, are ethnic Kurds from the Iraqi army.

“The issue of IEDs is an extremely challenging one”, al-Rawi told reporters in Baghdad. Ms Grande appealed to global donors to augment the $10 million fund allocated for that operation. The city is under siege by Iraqi government troops, but Iraqi officials say the northern city of Mosul is the government’s next priority.

“The level of destruction in Ramadi is as bad as anything we have seen in Iraq”, said Lise Grande, the U.N.’s deputy special representative to Iraq.

Ramadi fell to IS in May 2015 in the largest defeat for Iraq’s military since Mosul fell in 2014.