Iraq launches operation to retake IS-held city of Fallujah

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the beginning of military operations to retake the Islamic State-held held city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, in a televised address late Sunday night.

Iraqi forces are “approaching a moment of great victory” against the Islamic State group, said al-Abadi, who was surrounded by top military commanders from the Ministry of Defense and the country’s elite counterterrorism forces. Fallujah is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad and has been under the control of IS for more than two years.

The premier said that special forces, soldiers, police, militia forces and pro-government tribesmen will take part in the operation to retake the city.

The announcement settles the issue of which IS-held city Iraq should seek to retake next — a subject of debate among Iraqi officials and international forces helping the country fight the jihadists.

Iraq’s second city Mosul was the American military’s recommended target, but powerful Iraqi militias may have helped force the issue by deploying reinforcements to the Fallujah area in preparation for an assault.

Iraqi forces have begun laying the groundwork for the recapture of Mosul, but progress has been slow and an assault to retake the city remains far off.

The US-led anti-IS coalition carried out seven strikes in the Fallujah area last week, and Iraq said it has also bombed the city with US-supplied F-16 warplanes.

On Sunday, Iraq’s Joint Operations Command warned civilians still in Fallujah — estimated to number in the tens of thousands — to leave the city, but residents say that checkpoints controlled by the extremists along all roads leading out of the city are preventing most from fleeing.

It also said that families who cannot leave should raise a white flag over their location and stay away from IS headquarters and gatherings.

Last week, Iraqi forces pushed IS out of the western town of Rutba, located 240 miles (380 kilometers) west of Baghdad, on the edge of Anbar province. Last month, Iraqi forces cleared territory along Anbar’s Euphrates river valley after the provincial capital Ramadi was declared fully liberated earlier this year.

However, Fallujah is expected to be a complicated fight.

IS bastion

Iraqi forces have in recent days been massing around the city, which has been out of government control since January 2014.

Anti-government fighters seized it after the army was withdrawn, and Fallujah later became one of IS’s main strongholds.

Fallujah and Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh, are the last two major cities IS still holds in Iraq.

Fallujah is almost completely surrounded by Iraqi forces, who have regained significant ground in the Anbar province in recent months, including its capital Ramadi further up the Euphrates River valley.

American forces launched two major assaults on Fallujah in 2004 in which they saw some of their heaviest fighting since the Vietnam War.

Iraqi forces would have the advantage of greater knowledge of the area, especially if they employ pro-government Anbar tribal fighters in the battle.

But they lack the training and enormous firepower that American forces brought to the Fallujah battles.

IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, and Iraqi forces performed dismally during the offensive despite significantly outnumbering the jihadists.

Baghdad’s forces have since managed to regain significant ground from IS with the backing of US-led air strikes, training and other support.

But the battle for Fallujah — a city that has long been a Sunni insurgent stronghold and which IS has had some two years to reinforce — will be one of the toughest challenges they have yet faced.

Political crisis

The announcement for the battle comes at a time of deepening political and social unrest in Baghdad.

Clashes earlier this month between protesters and Iraqi security forces inside Baghdad’s highly fortified Green Zone compound left two people dead after security forces fired tear gas, water cannon and live ammunition in an attempt to disperse the crowds. Over 100 people were wounded, hospital and police officials said. They spoke anonymously as they were not authorized to brief the press. The Green Zone houses most Iraqi government ministries and foreign embassies.

Al-Abadi’s office released a preliminary investigation Sunday that claimed police and military guards did not fire directly into the crowd of demonstrators, according to a statement released Sunday by Saad al-Hadithi, the prime minister’s spokesman.

Many of the protesters were supporters of powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has led months of demonstrations and sit-ins calling for government reforms. Al-Sadr has since issued a statement condemning the use of force against “peaceful” demonstrations and vowed to continue to support the “revolution” against the government.

Al-Abadi spoke by phone with US President Barack Obama on Saturday and “agreed on the critical importance of improving the security” of Baghdad and the Green Zone, according to a White House statement. It added that the two leaders also discussed progress being made in the campaign against the Islamic State group.

Iraq’s political crisis has left the government deadlocked as security forces struggle to fight the Islamic State group.