Iraqi army seizes hospital, jails as military ops continue in Fallujah

Iraq’s military said Friday that it had entered the center of Fallujah, a city just 40 miles west of Baghdad that has been held for two years by militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and retaken a central government compound from the terror group.

US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said there was “still some fighting to be done” as IS still controls a significant part of the city.

CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer says taking the compound is a major symbolic victory for the Iraqi army – and the latest in a series of high profile defeats for ISIS.

Fierce clashes broke out across Falluja, Iraq, on Friday as the country’s prime minister declared the city free – for the most part – from the grip of ISIS militants.

Falluja, an historic bastion of the Sunni insurgency against USA forces that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003, and the Shi’ite-led governments that followed, was seen as a launchpad for recent Islamic State bombings in the capital. They have lost control of their fighters.

Civilians flee a liberated community on the outskirts of Fallujah.

A spokesman for the USA -led coalition said Apache attack helicopters had conducted operations in support of Iraqi forces in the Tigris river valley, where the advance is situated.

They were backed by air strikes from the US-led coalition. Iraqi forces are now clearing roadside bombs near the government complex, which includes the municipality offices that IS had torched, the police station and other government buildings. Our courageous forces went into the town and took control of areas inside the city.

USA officials acknowledge that military victory in Fallujah could give way to political setback if sectarian agendas are not kept in check. Or at least, the officials surmised, the tribal fighters had come to believe that victory by the Iraqi government was inevitable and were trying to get their families to safety.

The operation to retake Fallujah, with the help of Shiite militias and USA air power, began nearly four weeks ago.

Colonel Mohammed Abdulla of Salahuddin operations command said the extremists fired mortar rounds in an attempt to slow the advance, killing two policemen and wounding three soldiers.

Referring to the Islamic State in Fallujah, he said: “It’s certainly not one big amorphous mass”.

The UN says about 68,000 people have now fled Falluja since the government offensive began on 23 May, although Medecins Sans Frontieres and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) put the figure at closer to 30,000.

Aid groups have been warning for days they would be overwhelmed by the flow of displaced and were running low on funding and supplies to respond to the humanitarian crisis.

The troops later captured the Dubbat neighborhood and are now pushing into the northern neighborhood of Golan and several small areas, he said.