Britain congratulates Iraq on Ramadi recapture

Ramadi Iraq:Iraq declared the city of Ramadi liberated from the Islamic State group Monday and raised the national flag over its government complex after clinching a landmark victory against the jihadists.

Abadi arrived by helicopter in the battle-scarred city, which lies around 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Baghdad and is the capital of the province of Anbar.

It is customary for the premier to visit newly reconquered cities but he was likely to feel particularly vindicated by the victory in Ramadi, which government forces had lost in May.

The months-long siege of Ramadi – which the Islamic State captured in May in a humiliating defeat for Baghdad – finally came to an end in recent days after Iraqi ground forces managed to breach the rings of improvised explosive devices and other obstacles methodically assembled by well-entrenched Islamic State fighters.

“If 2015 was a year of liberation, 2016 will be the year of great victories, terminating the presence of Daesh (IS) in Iraq and Mesopotamia”, he said in a televised address.

US Army Colonel Steve Warren, a spokesman for a US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces, said in a statement: “The clearance of the government centre is a significant accomplishment and is the result of many months of hard work”. Soldiers could be seen slaughtering sheep in celebration near heavily damaged buildings.

Mark Kimmitt, a former USA assistant secretary of political and military affairs, said recapturing Ramadi was just a small part of defeating ISIL.

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.

Security officials said they still needed to clear pockets of insurgents held up in the city and its outskirts.

Authorities gave no immediate death toll from the battle for the city.

Fighters brandishing rifles danced in Ramadi as top commanders paraded through the streets after recapturing the city they lost to IS in May.

Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the head of the U.S. Central Command, congratulated Iraqi forces on the “important operational achievement”.

According to a U.S. summary of operations, coalition aircraft working with Iraqi forces struck several positions in the Ramadi area on Monday, including a “staging area” for Islamic State vehicle bombs.

Such a strategy would echo the U.S. military’s “surge” campaign of 2006-2007, which relied on recruiting and arming tribal fighters against a precursor of Islamic State.

In the fight for Ramadi, the government chose not to deploy the powerful Shia-dominated paramilitary force that helped it regain the mainly Sunni northern city of Tikrit, to avoid increasing sectarian tensions.

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

Ramadi and Fallujah, Sunni Arab cities where distrust of the Shiite-led government runs deep, were major bastions of the insurgency in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.