Mosul is next ISIL target after Ramadi: Iraq PM

Iraqi forces have insurgents surrounded in centre of Anbar province's capital.

Smoke rises from ISIL positions following a US-led coalition air strike as Iraqi security forces advance in central Ramadi on December 25, 2015. AP Photo

BAGHDAD // Iraq’s armed forces will move to retake the major northern city of Mosul from ISIL once they capture the western city of Ramadi, prime minister Haider Al Abadi said on Friday.

Capturing Mosul would deprive the militant group of its biggest population centre in both Iraq and Syria, effectively abolishing the state structure of ISIL in Iraq, depriving it of a major source of funding and dealing a blow to its influence.

“The liberation of dear Mosul will be achieved with the cooperation and unity of all Iraqis after the victory in Ramadi,” Mr Abadi said.

The battle for Ramadi continued on Friday, with troops facing sniper fire, car bombs, roadside bombs and booby traps as they try to force ISIL fighters from a strategic compound in the centre of the city.

Elite forces from the counter-terrorism service (CTS) faced limited resistance when they punched into central Ramadi four days earlier, in a final push to retake the city they lost to ISIL in May.

The extremists have concentrated their defence around the main government complex in the Hoz neighbourhood and now Iraqi forces are struggling to break in.

“We are facing many obstacles, mostly snipers and car bombs,” said First Lieutenant Bashar Hussein, from a position in Dhubbat neighbourhood just south of Hoz.

The terrain allows a small number of determined men to hold off a larger force.

Iraqi soldiers were around 500 metres away from the compound on Thursday and had only inched a little closer by Friday.

“Daesh resistance got stiffer as Iraqi forces moved closer to the government compound,” said an army brigadier general.

“Our forces are now just over 300 metres away from those buildings,” he said.

The number of ISIL fighters still holding out in the city was estimated at fewer than 400, with reports of some retreating from the front by using civilians as human shields.

“Operations to liberate Ramadi need time. It isn’t easy to retake it quickly,” said Ibrahim Al Fahdawi, the head of the security committee for nearby Khaldiya district.

“Booby-trapped houses, suicide attacks, improvised explosive devices, snipers, mortars, rockets: Daesh is using everything it’s got to stop the progress of the security forces,” Mr Al Fahdawi said.

ISIL claims to have inflicted serious losses in multiple attacks across Ramadi, but Iraqi security officials admitted only to limited casualties and said they were able to repulse suicide car bomb attacks.

The loss of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province west of Baghdad, was the Iraq government’s most stinging defeat in the war against ISIL since the extremists took over Mosul and about a third of the country in June last year.

A key component of ISIL’s victory in May was the use of dozens of massive suicide car bombs to blitz government positions but, more than six months on, the security forces came prepared.

“They’ve tried but they’ve had less success for several reasons,” said Col Steve Warren, spokesman for the US-led coalition that has been carrying out daily air strikes against ISIL.

“Both Iraqis and the coalition have become much better at identifying these threats earlier on,” he said.

“The Iraqis have been equipped with AT4 shoulder-fired anti-armour rockets, so the coalition has trained them on how to deploy these weapons, provided them with 5,000 of them and the Iraqis have used them to great effect,” Col Warren said.

Also slowing the security forces’ advance was the presence of civilians trapped in their homes.

Dozens of families that had stayed in central Ramadi, many of them prevented from leaving by ISIL when the security forces launched their big push on Tuesday, have managed to flee.

But Mr Al Fahdawi said dozens remained trapped, mostly in the areas of Al Thaylah and Al Jamaiyah.

“Daesh detained all the men and left the women and children in their homes ... It may be because they want to prevent a revolt against them from what’s left of the male population,” he said.

The operation to retake Ramadi started months ago with Iraqi forces cutting ISIL supply lines to parts of Anbar before gradually closing in on the city, taking key bridges, roads and positions one after the other.

Retaking the city would provide a welcome morale boost to the much-criticised military.

It would also isolate the ISIL bastion of Fallujah, farther down the Euphrates valley on the way to Baghdad, and continue to shrink the “caliphate” ISIL proclaimed last year.

* Reuters and Agence France-Presse