Iraqi forces recapture last Isis-held town
BAGHDAD Iraqi forces have recaptured the border town of Rawa, the last remaining town under Islamic State control, signalling the collapse of the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate.
Rawa’s capture yesterday marks the end of Isis’s era of territorial rule over a so-called caliphate that it proclaimed in 2014 across vast swathes of Iraq and Syria.
Iraqi forces ‘‘liberated Rawa entirely, and raised the Iraqi flag over its buildings’’, Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah said in a statement from the Joint Operations Command.
Syria’s army has also declared victory against Isis, but last week the militants re-infiltrated Albu Kamal, near the border from Iraq, and are still fighting there, as well as in some villages and desert areas nearby.
All the forces fighting Isis in both countries expect a new phase of guerrilla warfare.
Prime Minister Haider alAbadi congratulated Iraq’s armed forces and people, saying that Iraq would soon completely defeat Isis.
A map published by the military showed zero areas under Isis control. A spokesman for the United States-led coalition fighting the group in both Iraq and Syria said on Twitter it had ‘‘crumbled’’.
A video issued by the military showed a convoy of military vehicles sporting Iraqi flags and REUTERS blasting the national anthem. State television played patriotic songs and aired footage of troops in Rawa.
Iraqi forces would now focus on routing the militants who had fled into the desert, and exerting control over Iraq’s borders, a mili- tary spokesman said.
Rawa borders Syria, whose army recently seized the last substantial town on the border with Iraq, Albu Kamal.
Albu Kamal shares a border crossing with al-Qaim in Iraq. Isis lost control of the border crossing earlier this month, dealing a critical blow to the organisation, which had long relied on the route to move its fighters and equipment.
The group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is believed to be hiding in the stretch of desert that runs along the border of both countries.
Driven this year from its two de facto capitals – Iraq’s Mosul and Syria’s Raqqa – Isis has been progressively squeezed into an ever-shrinking pocket of desert.
The group’s defeat did not mean civilians were now safe, the International Rescue Committee said. Nearly 3.2 million people were unable or unwilling to return home after years of displacement, and over 11 million were in need of vital humanitarian assistance. Reuters