Most of Fallujah retaken from IS as trapped residents flee

Iraq special forces control 80% of city

BAGHDAD — Iraqi special forces swept into Fallujah on Friday, recapturing most of the city as the Islamic State group’s grip crumbled after weeks of fighting. Thousands of trapped residents took advantage of the militants’ retreat to flee, some swimming across the Euphrates River to safety.

Residents described harrowing escapes even after IS fighters abandoned some checkpoints that had them bottled up in the city. On the river, some boats packed with people overturned in the water. Others picked their way down roads laced with hidden bombs that killed several. In some cases, IS allowed people to leave only if they took the jihadis’ families with them.

After weeks of heavy battles since the offensive began in late May, it appeared that IS defenses in much of the city collapsed abruptly.

In the early morning Friday, Iraqi forces punched into the city center, meeting intense fighting. But by evening, the special forces commander Brig. Haider al-Obedi told the Associated Press that his troops controlled 80 percent of the city, with IS fighters now concentrated in four districts on its northern edge.

It was a major step toward regaining the Islamic State group’s last major foothold in Iraq’s western Anbar province, the heartland of the country’s Sunni minority. The militants overran the city in early 2014, the first urban area to fall into its hands before it overran most of Anbar and much of northern Iraq.

Over the past year, Iraqi forces backed by U.S-led airstrikes have city-by-city regained large parts of that territory — though the biggest prize, Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, and surrounding territory in the north, remains in IS control, liked to its holdings in neighboring Syria.

Friday evening, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi spoke on national TV from the joint command center, congratulating the troops on their victories. “We promised to liberate Fallujah, and it has returned to the embrace of the nation,” he said.

Iraqi forces have “tightened their control over the inside of the city, and there are some pockets that need to be cleaned out within hours,” he said.

In the early hours, special forces pushed into Fallujah’s central al-Nazzal district, which had served as a base for the militants with weapons warehouses and command centers, al-Obeidi said. Backed with air support from the US-led coalition and Iraqi air force, the troops were able to move into the center at around 6 a.m. They seized the main government complex, which includes municipality offices that IS had torched, the police station and other government buildings.

“Iraqi forces are now in the center of the city. They had not been there since the beginning of 2014,” al-Obeidi said.

IS fighters were still holding out in the nearby central hospital, al-Obeidi said.

Meanwhile, troops were clearing roadside bombs from recaptured areas.