Iraqi Army begins attack on ISIS- held Ramadi

Baghdad/ Beirut, Dec. 21: Iraq’s armed forces will start in the coming hours an operation to retake the city of Ramadi from ISIS militants, state TV reported, citing the Srmy Chief of staff.

“The operation to free Ramadi will begin in the coming hours,” the TV cited him as saying in a headline on screen, giving no further details and not identifying the officer by name.

Meanwhile, ISIS militants are preventing civilians from leaving Ramadi ahead of an attack planned by the Iraqi Army to retake the western city that the militants captured in May, an Iraqi defence ministry spokesman said on Monday. “There are families that managed to escape the gangs of Daesh,” the spokesman, Naseer Nuri, told Reuters, using a local derogatory

ISIS militants are preventing civilians from leaving Ramadi ahead of an attack planned by the Iraqi Army

name for the group. “There is intelligence information from inside the city that they are preventing families from leaving; they plan to use them as human shields,” he added, without indicating the number of those who had managed to flee.

Iraqi military planes on Sunday dropped leaflets on Ramadi, asking residents to leave within 72 hours and indicating safe routes for their exit. Iraqi intelligence estimates the number of ISIS fighters that are entrenched in the centre of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, at between 250 and 300.

Stretched thin and under pressure by increasing airstrikes, the ISIS group has been forced into a defensive position in areas under its control in Syria and Iraq. Some experts believe the jihadist group’s luck has changed. “In recent months, ISIS’s positions along most of its fighting fronts in Syria and Iraq have turned defensive,” says Iraqi expert Hisham alHashimi, who closely follows jihadist developments.