Iraq declares Ramadi liberated from ISIL

Pro-government forces danced in the capital of Anbar province.

A member of the Iraqi security forces holds an Iraqi flag in the city of Ramadi on December 27. Reuters

Ramadi // Iraq on Monday declared the city of Ramadi liberated from ISIL, a landmark victory against the extremists who still control large areas of the country.

“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.

Fighters brandishing rifles danced in the Anbar provincial capital as top commanders paraded through the streets after recapturing the city they lost to ISIL in May. Pockets of militants 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 ISIL left behind.

“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.

The former government headquarters was the centre of the fighting but Iraqi forces did not rush in when ISIL pulled out because the entire area was rigged.

Several local officials said the militants used civilians as human shields to escape the battle when it became clear their last stand in Ramadi was doomed.

ISIL had an estimated force of about 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.

The Iraqi authorities did not divulge any casualty figures for the federal forces.

The US-led anti-ISIL 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.

The speaker of Iraq’s parliament was one of the first top officials to congratulate the security forces on their victory late Sunday.

“This great victory has broken the back of Daesh and represents a launchpad for the liberation of Nineveh,” Salim Al Juburi said.

Nineveh province is home to Iraq’s second city of Mosul, from which ISIL supremo Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi proclaimed his “caliphate” straddling Iraq and Syria more than a year and a half ago.

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.

Many have been living in the northern autonomous region of Kurdistan and some could be seen celebrating there on Sunday, but Ramadi is devastated and a return to normality is some way away.

Sohaib Ali, 27, fled Ramadi with his three children and the rest of his family to the Kurdish capital of Erbil nearly two years ago.

“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 last week ago that Iraqi forces had reconquered more than half of the territory lost to ISIL in June and August 2014.

The victory in Ramadi comes on the heels of operations that saw Iraqi forces retake Beiji, north of Baghdad, and Sinjar, the hub of the Yazidi minority in the north-east 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, which have played a large role in recapturing other areas, 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 it has achieved a victory without the support of the Popular Mobilisation force,” he said.

The Iraq army collapsed when ISIL attacked Mosul in June 2014 and swept across Iraq’s Sunni Arab heartland virtually unopposed.

* Agence France-Press