Iraqi forces push deeper into Islamic State-held Fallujah

Since January 2014, when Fallujah was captured by ISIL, at least 22,169 civilians have been killed and 43,435 wounded in Iraq, according to the Zeid’s office.

The army was previously surrounding Falluja from positions outside the city, which is located 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad. Paramilitary troops, made up mainly from Shiite militias, have been tasked with pushing the militants from the outskirts and tightening the siege around Fallujah.

Many in Fallujah ran out of money to buy food from the group, as the Iraqi government had halted the salaries of government employees in the city, to prevent the funds from being seized by Daesh.

A spokesman for the group put the number of Hashed al-Shaabi fighters involved at the beginning of the Fallujah operation at 30,000.

The Popular Mobilization Forces denied that.

“These are things that happen on the battlefield”, he said, referring to the dispute over how the battle should progress.

Since the start of the assault to retake the city two weeks ago, conditions for civilians in Fallujah have swiftly deteriorated.

Some militias have been accused of sectarian violence against Sunni civilians during previous operations, and their involvement in an offensive against one of IS’s most emblematic strongholds in the Sunni province of Anbar is seen as potentially explosive.

“Eyewitnesses have described how armed groups operating in support of the Iraqi Security Forces are intercepting people fleeing the conflict, separating the men and teenage boys from the women and children, and detaining the males for “security screening”, which in some cases degenerates into physical violations and other forms of abuse, apparently in order to elicit forced confessions”, he said.

The sky above Fallujah’s Shuhada neighborhood on Wednesday filled with fine dust and thick gray smoke obscuring minarets and communication towers as artillery rounds and volleys of airstrikes cleared the way for Iraqi ground forces.

Allegations of human rights violations have surfaced on both sides of the operation.

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.

The findings are partly based on interviews with the area councilmen of Saqlawiyah, a suburb of Fallujah. The Islamic State not only harasses Fallujah residents like al-Dulaimi who try to flee, but the group, also known as ISIL or ISIS, also executes people deemed deserters, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.

“I hope that [Prime Minister] and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Haidar al-Abadi will give priority to the fight to liberate Fallujah [from Daesh] and refrain from opening any new fronts”, Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Shia Badr Organization, told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.

The reference was to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, one of the supporters of the rebels fighting to topple Assad in the country’s yearslong civil war. The detainees were from towns liberated from the Islamic State in recent months. “We have no choice but to be victorious”, Assad said to applause.

Assad’s forces, backed by Russian airpower, also launched an offensive against Islamic State last week and have advanced in territory further south.