Iraqis declare Fallujah liberated

Forces celebrate, set sights on recapturing ISIS-held Mosul

Iraqi security forces enter the al-Julan neighborhood of Fallujah on Sunday after defeating Islamic State militants. An Iraqi commander said Sunday that Fallujah has been recaptured.
Iraqi security forces enter the al-Julan neighborhood of Fallujah on Sunday after defeating Islamic State militants. An Iraqi commander said Sunday that Fallujah has been recaptured.

BAGHDAD -- After a military operation that lasted nearly five weeks, a senior Iraqi commander declared Sunday that the city of Fallujah was "fully liberated" from the Islamic State group.

photo

AP

Iraqi security forces celebrate Sunday as they hold the flag of the Islamic State group that they captured in Fallujah, Iraq, after defeating Islamic State militants.

Recapturing Fallujah, the first Iraqi city to fall to the Islamic State more than two years ago, means that authorities can now set their sights on militant-held Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, in central Fallujah with the celebrating troops, vowed that the Iraqi flag would next be raised above Mosul.

Iraqi troops entered Fallujah's northwestern neighborhood of al-Julan, the last part of the city under Islamic State control, said Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi, head of the counterterrorism forces in the operation.

The operation, which began May 22, "is done, and the city is fully liberated," al-Saadi said.

Al-Abadi, dressed in the black fatigues of the counterterrorism forces and carrying an Iraqi flag, visited Fallujah's central hospital Sunday evening and called for residents of the city to celebrate the military's advance.

"We had promised that we would raise the Iraqi flag high in Fallujah, and we have fulfilled this promise, and we will raise it soon in Mosul," al-Abadi said as he raised the flag. Mosul, about 250 miles northwest of Baghdad, is the last major Iraqi city in the hands of the militants.

But tens of thousands of people from Fallujah who were forced to flee their homes during the operation are still at overcrowded camps in the Anbar desert.

The United Nations refugee agency said more than 85,000 people have fled Fallujah and the surrounding area since the offensive began. The agency and others have warned of dire conditions in the camps, where temperatures are well over 100 degrees and shelter is limited. Officials have called for more funds to meet mounting needs.

The U.S.-led coalition said it was still conducting airstrikes in the area. And though Iraq's defense minister tweeted that 90 percent of Fallujah is "safe and inhabitable," aid groups warned it was too early to say when residents could return to their homes in the city, citing the presence of makeshift bombs left behind by the militants.

In the narrow streets of an area secured earlier Sunday, an officer urged caution as he pointed out a booby trap, its yellow wires leading out of the ground and over the gate into a nearby house.

"Danger explosives," someone had written on the wall. Maj. Gen. Tamer Mohammed Ismail, a commander with the Iraqi police's rapid reaction division, said his forces had detonated two booby-trapped houses and 13 roadside bombs on Sunday.

When civilians initially returned to Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, after the city was declared fully liberated from Islamic State militants in February, about 100 people were killed by booby-trapped explosives. The city's time-consuming de-mining process is ongoing.

The Fallujah operation was carried out by Iraq's elite counterterrorism troops, Iraqi federal police, Anbar provincial police and an umbrella group of government-sanctioned militia fighters -- mostly Shiites -- who are known as the Popular Mobilization Forces.

Fallujah, a predominantly Sunni city about 40 miles west of Baghdad, was a stronghold of insurgents after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. More than 100 American soldiers died and hundreds more were wounded in intense, house-by-house fighting in 2004. Many residents of the city welcomed the Islamic State when it overran the city in 2014, complicating the fight by government troops to retake it.

Iraqi commanders said their progress in Fallujah was a result of the Islamic State's weakened state after being besieged by security forces for months, as well as a growing backlash in the city against the militant group's rule.

The Islamic State resistance that held out for more than a week on the northern and western edges of Fallujah largely collapsed early Sunday under a barrage from coalition warplanes, including an airstrike that killed 47 fighters in the al-Julan neighborhood, said Brig. Gen. Haider al-Obeidi of Iraq's special forces.

"From the center of al-Julan neighborhood, we congratulate the Iraqi people and the commander in chief ... and declare that the Fallujah fight is over," al-Saadi, flanked by troops, said on Iraqi state TV.

Some of the soldiers shot their weapons into the air, sang and waved Iraqi flags.

"The coalition continues to provide support through strikes, intelligence, and advice and assistance to the Iraqi security forces operating in Fallujah and will continue to do so through deliberate clearing operations," said U.S. Army Col. Christopher Garver, the spokesman for the coalition.

Al-Abadi initially declared victory in Fallujah more than a week ago, after Iraqi forces advanced into the city center and took control of a government complex. He pledged that remaining pockets of Islamic State fighters would be cleared out within hours, but fierce clashes on the city's northern and western edges persisted for days.

In addition to Mosul, Islamic State extremists still control significant areas in northern and western Iraq. The group, which swept across Syria and Iraq in the summer of 2014, declared an Islamic caliphate in that territory. At the height of its power, it was estimated to hold nearly a third of each country.

The campaign for Mosul has been bogged down by logistics problems as Iraq's political leadership jockeys over the planning of the operation.

More than 3.3 million Iraqis have fled their homes since the Islamic State advance, according to U.N. figures. More than 40 percent are from Anbar province, where Fallujah is located.

Killings shown on video

Meanwhile, a graphic video emerged Sunday showing the killing of five Syrian media activists captured by the Islamic State group last year.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the five were abducted in October and are believed to have been killed in December over their coverage of events in the eastern Syrian city of Deir el-Zour, half of which is held by the Islamic State.

The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdurrahman, said news of the detention and killing of the activists was withheld because no bodies had been found and the families feared retribution for reporting the deaths.

In the video, an Islamic State narrator says the group is facing a media war and warns against reporting by the "crusaders" and "enemies of God." The narrator says journalists who report on the Islamic State may be targeted, even if they reside in Europe.

Abdurrahman said one of the activists, 28-year-old Sami Jawdat, had been feeding information to the Observatory since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 and continued to do so after the Islamic State seized half of Deir el-Zour in 2014. He said Jawdat had been detained by the Islamic State on a number of previous occasions.

Abdurrahman said that since learning of the abduction and killing of the activists, his group has told other activists to refrain from taking photos or shooting video in Islamic State-held areas.

In the video, each activist explains what he did to report from the area, at times acting it out by shooting pictures or interviewing people in the city's market. One of the activists says he reported for Al-Jazeera, another says he contributed to the New York-based activist group Human Rights Watch. There was no immediate comment from either on Sunday.

Syria is the third-deadliest country in the world for journalists, after Yemen and Iraq, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. At least 95 journalists have been killed in Syria since 2011. Few international news organizations send staff to Syria because of kidnappings by militants, who often kill their hostages.

Information for this article was contributed by Sinan Salaheddin, Susannah George, Qassim Abdul-Zahra and staff members of The Associated Press and by Loveday Morris and Mustafa Salim of The Washington Post.

A Section on 06/27/2016

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