raq declares Ramadi liberated from IS, sweeps for bombs

Iraqi security forces place the national
flag above the Islamic State group flag on
December 28, 2015 in front of the Anbar
police headquarters after they
recaptured Ramadi, the capital of Anbar
province (AFP Photo/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)

Iraq declared the city of Ramadi
liberated from the Islamic State group on
Monday and raised the national flag
over its government complex after
clinching a landmark victory against the
jihadists.
Fighters brandishing rifles danced in the
Anbar provincial capital as top
commanders paraded through the streets
after recapturing the city they lost to IS
in May.
Pockets of jihadists may remain but the
army said it no longer faced any
resistance and that its main task was to
defuse the countless bombs and traps IS
left behind.
“Ramadi has been liberated and the
armed forces of the counter-terrorism
service have raised the Iraqi flag above
the government complex,” Brigadier
General Yahya Rasool announced on
state television.
The former government headquarters in
Ramadi was the epicentre of the fighting
but Iraqi forces did not rush in when IS
pulled out because the entire area was
rigged.
“Daesh has planted more than 300
explosive devices on the roads and in the
buildings of the government complex,”
said Brigadier General Majid al-Fatlawi
of the army’s 8th division.
Several local officials said IS used
civilians as human shields to escape the
battle when it became clear their last
stand in Ramadi was doomed.
A senior army commander told AFP that
his forces were still sweeping the
outskirts of the city for potential pockets
of jihadists.
IS had an estimated force of around 400
fighters to defend central Ramadi a week
ago. It is not clear how many were killed
and how many were able to pull back to
positions outside the city.
– Mosul next? –
The Iraqi authorities did not divulge any
casualty figures for federal forces but
medics told AFP that close to 100
wounded government fighters were
brought to Baghdad hospitals on Sunday
alone.
“The dead bodies are taken directly to
the main military hospital” near the
airport, said one hospital source,
explaining why he could not provide a
death toll.
The US-led anti-IS coalition praised the
performance of the Iraqi forces in
retaking Ramadi, an operation in which
it played a significant role, training local
forces, arming them and carrying out
what it said were 600 air strikes since
July.
French President Francois Hollande
called the liberation of Ramadi the “most
important victory yet” in the fight
against the jihadists.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-
Walter Steinmeier said “it shows once
again that IS is not unbeatable”.
The jihadists’ loss of Ramadi came on the
heels of the recapture in neighbouring
Syria of a key dam on the Euphrates by
an alliance of Kurdish and Arab rebels.
The speaker parliament was one of the
first top Iraqi officials to congratulate
the security forces on their victory.
“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.
Nineveh is home to Iraq’s second city of
Mosul, from which IS chief Abu Bakr al-
Baghdadi proclaimed his “caliphate”
straddling Iraq and Syria more than a
year and a half ago.
– Boost for army –
Anbar residents account for more than a
third of the 3.2 million Iraqis who have
been displaced by conflict since the start
of 2014.
Ramadi is devastated and a return to
normalcy is some way away.
Sohaib Ali, 27, fled with his three
children and the rest of his family to the
capital of the autonomous Kurdish
region Arbil nearly two years ago when
violence first hit Ramadi.
“We do not intend to return for now,
although this liberation makes us very
happy. We can see that huge damage
was caused in the city and I don’t think
that basic services will return for a
while, nor will security,” he said.
Iraq’s defence minister, Khaled al-
Obeidi, said a week ago that Iraqi forces
had reconquered more than half of the
territory lost to IS in June and August
2014.
The victory in Ramadi follows others in
Baiji, north of Baghdad, and Sinjar, the
hub of the Yazidi minority in the
northeast of the country.
Ramadi was recaptured by federal
forces, with the Popular Mobilisation —
a paramilitary force dominated by
Tehran-backed Shiite militia groups —
remaining on the fringes.
Many of Prime Minister Haider al-
Abadi’s political rivals had questioned
his strategy of excluding those groups
and relying on the US-led coalition’s air
power.
“The prestige goes to the Iraqi military,”
said political analyst Ihsan al-Shammari.
“As an institution, it’s the first time since
the Daesh invasion (in June 2014) it has
achieved a victory without the support of
the Popular Mobilisation force,” he said.
The Iraq army collapsed when IS
attacked Mosul in June 2014 and swept
across Iraq’s Sunni Arab heartland
virtually unopposed.