Iraqi forces push deeper into Fallujah

“The operation to retake Fallujah is expected to be one of the most hard yet”.

Falluja would be the third major city in Iraq recaptured by the government after former leader Saddam Hussein’s hometown Tikrit and Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s western Anbar province. A statement by the Joint Special Operations Command on social media said later in the day the area was completely liberated and progress continued towards other areas.

It is symbolically important to both sides: Many of the Iraqi forces fought al-Qaida in Iraq – the predecessor to IS – in this same territory, and the city was the scene of some of the bloodiest urban combat with USA forces in 2004.

A frontier city on the easternmost edge of Anbar province, Fallujah has always been a bastion of support among its mostly Sunni population for anti-government militants following the 2003 US -led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

A soldier with Iraq’s elite counterterrorism force stands at the mouth of a tunnel dug by Islamic State militants under Fallujah, Iraq, Wednesday, June 8, 2016.

Iraqi government forces fighting to retake Fallujah from the Islamic State group seized a southern neighbourhood of the city on Wednesday, officials said.

“The situation inside Fallujah is not stable”, he told NBC News.

Early in the month, the United Nations children fund warned that at least 20,000 Iraqi children remain trapped in the city of Fallujah where Iraqi security forces are fighting to drive out the extremist IS militants from the city. After Iraqi forces began their advance, a quick succession of coalition airstrikes followed, filling the sky with dark grey smoke.

Surrounding buildings have been shredded by artillery fire and the simple dirt roads running through the largely agricultural neighborhood have been churned by Iraqi troops’ heavily armored vehicles – a testimonial to the ferocity of the fighting.

About 50,000 people were believed to remain in Fallujah, once a city of about 300,000, and the “Iraqi government has been clear that protecting these civilians is their priority”, according to Army Col. Steve Warren, who was the main spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve before returning to the states last week.

“We have underestimated how many civilians are in Fallujah”, Grande said. Hayder Mayahi, an official with the group’s media office overseeing the Fallujah operation, said the group’s fighters were ready to enter Fallujah if given the order but were standing down for now.

The video comes as Iraqi forces declared that they were just days away from retaking Fallujah from the control of ISIS.