Fallujah: Iraqi army pushes ISIL back

The Iraqi army has launched an operation to liberate Fallujah from the ISIL army, which is the final phase of an operation that has been ongoing for a week around the militants' stronghold near Baghdad, reports the British Guardian, according to the Patria News Agency.

Tens of thousands of civilians are trapped in the city, and only a few have managed to escape.

A spokesperson for the Iraqi elite counter-terrorism service said that military forces entered the city from three directions. As the military unit advanced, explosions and gunfire could be heard in the southern Naimiya district.

 

With the advance of Iraqi forces, a suicide car bombing in a Shiite part of Baghdad, which bore all the hallmarks of attacks carried out by ISIL in recent weeks, killed at least 8 people.

If Iraqi forces succeed in Fallujah, they will ultimately push ISIL back to their self-proclaimed Iraqi capital of Mosul, with limited chances of capturing more Iraqi territory.

Fallujah was the first Iraqi city to fall under ISIL control in January 2014, 6 months before they declared a caliphate in the territory they occupied in Iraq and Syria. The militants have since used the city as their stronghold in the immediate vicinity of Baghdad, where the weakened Iraqi national government resides.

The long-awaited military push against ISIL in Fallujah began last week amid a political crisis that culminated in public unrest fueled by poor services and widespread corruption, against the Baghdad government, which has been unable to decisively deal with terrorist groups.

- Iraqi forces entered Fallujah, supported from the air by the international coalition, Iraqi air forces and aviation, with artillery and tank support, reported Colonel General Abdelwahab al-Saadi, commander of the ongoing operation.

He also said that counter-terrorism forces, Anbar police, and the Iraqi army entered Fallujah around 4:00 AM from three directions.

- Daesh is resisting, he added, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL.

The Iraqi army, supported by Iran-backed Shiite paramilitary forces, began the operation to capture Fallujah on May 23, first by tightening the noose around the city, 50 km west of Baghdad, and now moving to a direct assault.

US representatives on the ground said late Friday that ISIL's supreme commander was killed in airstrikes. Around 70 other fighters were killed in these attacks, and one of the Iraqi paramilitary commanders said the final assault would happen within a few "days, not weeks." Reports indicate that civilians are dying of starvation.

In this military blockade where food and medicine are running out, ISIL has detained tens of thousands of civilians and is using them as human shields, a handful of families who managed to escape told humanitarian organizations and journalists.

They risked their lives fleeing through ISIL checkpoints and minefields, convinced that the upcoming fighting would be even more dangerous for ordinary Iraqis trapped in their homes.

Some of the families who tried to escape were stopped by ISIL, which is defending its positions with the same intensity shown by Sunni groups in two major battles against US troops in 2004, according to the Guardian report.

Around 50,000 civilians are still trapped in the city, with growing fears that the jihadists will use them as human shields.

ISIL has about 2,000 fighters in Fallujah, as well as a significant number of supporters.

Pressure on ISIL forces is also increasing in Syria, where the Turkish army announced that it killed at least 28 ISIL fighters during shelling of Aleppo on Sunday.

The artillery and rocket-powered attack hit 58 ISIL targets, CNN Turk reported.

ISIL is also suffering heavy losses from an alliance of Kurdish fighters and US-backed rebels north of their self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa.

This second front potentially puts ISIL's capital in a zone of risk, and military planners hope it will divert attention from the fighting in Fallujah while ISIL commanders deal with the growing loss of territory they rely on for financial support, attracting foreign recruits.

There is a possibility that Mosul will remain out of the government's reach for a long time. ISIL considers it more important than Ramadi or Fallujah, strategically and financially, and the fighters are more mixed with the local population.

- Mosul is still important to ISIL as the de facto capital of Iraq and an important source of income. I think the mention of the possibility of entering Mosul is just testing the waters from a significant distance from the city for the coalition forces. There is still work to be done, said al-Tamimi, reports the British Guardian.