Iraqi flag raised in Ramadi after army’s victory

Britain on Monday congratulated Iraq after the city of Ramadi was recaptured from the Islamic State jihadist group.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region-The convoy of Iraq’s Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi came under rocket fire in Ramadi shortly after he arrived to salute Iraqi forces for the city’s recapture.

The army’s apparent capture of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province in the Euphrates River valley west of Baghdad, marks a major milestone for US-trained forces who crumbled when Islamic State fighters charged into Iraq in June 2014.

Ramadi is the capital of majority-Sunni Anbar province.

The victory in Ramadi comes on the heels of operations that saw Iraqi forces retake Baiji, north of Baghdad, and Sinjar, the hub of the Yazidi minority in the northeast of the country.

The Iraqi military launched a long-promised campaign to retake the city, located about 130 kilometres west of Baghdad, last week.

When IS captured Ramadi earlier this year, the militants blew up the homes of members of the security forces, but even those demolitions did not compare with the destruction wrought by the U.S.-led warplanes, according to al-Belawi.

A Iraqi military spokesman, Brig. But questions still remained over just how much of Ramadi, which Iraqi forces were forced to abandon in May, was under government control and just what was left of the city for civilians to return to. ISIL fighters have retreated from about 70 percent of city, but still control the rest, and government forces still don’t fully control numerous districts from which the ISIL fighters have retreated.

“Yes, the city of Ramadi has been liberated”.

“The Iraqi security forces, including the counterterrorism service, the Iraqi army, the Iraqi air force, the federal and local police and the tribal fighters, have demonstrated their resolve in the fight for Ramadi”, said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the CJTF-OIR commander. Some troops were seen slaughtering sheep in celebration near heavily damaged buildings.

An Iraqi flag waves over the government complex in central Ramad on Monday.

“We were totally surprised today”, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the press. “We do not want for the security forces to advance because if they do so there will be losses”, he said, “so we are trying to remove all the IEDs and explosives before entering the go vernmental compound”. Washington had hoped that a potentially decisive battle for that city would take place in 2015 but it was pushed back after the fighters seized Ramadi in May.

“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.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry congratulated Iraqi forces for “displaying tremendous perseverance and courage”. The Baghdad government was quick to announce a counter-offensive to retake the city but attempts repeatedly stalled.

“2016 will be the year of the big and final victory, when Daesh’s presence in Iraq will be terminated”, Mr Abadi said on state television, using another name for Islamic State. They swept through northern and western Iraq in June 2014 and declared a “caliphate” to rule over all Muslims from territory in both Iraq and Syria, carrying out mass killings and imposing a draconian form of Sunni Islam.

US troops were able to pacify Anbar and other Sunni areas starting in 2006 with the help of the Sahwa, or “awakening” movement – Sunni tribes and militias who allied with the Americans against al-Qaida in Iraq, the predecessor of the IS group.