Booby traps and snipers hamper Iraqi advance in key ISIS-held city

“We are facing many obstacles, mostly snipers and auto bombs”, said one CTS fighter, First Lieutenant Bashar Hussein, from a position in Dhubbat neighbourhood, just south of Hoz.

Arab League deputy chief Ahmed Ben Heli read out the statement at a press conference, in which he added that the Turkish troops ‘increased tumult in the region’.

The number of IS fighters still holding out in the city was estimated at fewer than 400, with reports of some retreating from the front by using civilians as human shields.

‘They (the troops) would be relocated from one Iraqi area to another Iraqi area.

Col. Steve Warren, a U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson, said coalition-backed Iraqi forces have isolated Ramadi from all angles, putting ISIS in a vulnerable state.

Iraqi security officials only admitted to limited casualties and said they were able to repulse suicide auto bomb attacks.

Mohammad Hatem, 18 years old, said his family “left Ramadi in May”.

Officials say groups of IS fighters are trying to slip through gaps in the Iraqi forces’ net aro …

The attacks came a day after Iraqi security forces reported progress in recapturing some areas in the western city of Ramadi, 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Baghdad, from the Islamic State extremists who control large swaths of land in western and northern Iraq and in neighboring Syria.

Smoke rises above a building during an air strike in Ramadi city, December 24, 2015.

And has the Iraqi government learnt lessons from its previous failures?

Iraqi army officials gave a different account of the attack, saying the attackers were killed by police bullets or the detonation of their suicide vests before they could reach their target while only three members of the police were wounded.

U.S. and coalition warplanes launched dozens of airstrikes against the contested city of Ramadi today, trying to drive ISIS forces back even as Iraqi ground troops move into the central parts of the Anbar capital.

The ultimate aim is to clear Islamic State from Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, and Falluja, which lies between Ramadi and Baghdad, as well as large areas of Syria – the core of what it has declared to be a caliphate.

A counterattack by government forces on the centre of the Ramadi began in earnest on Tuesday.

Retaking the city would provide a welcome morale boost to the much-criticised military.

Ramadi has strategic importance, because Anbar is the heartland of Iraq’s Sunni Muslim population and because the city is close to Baghdad.