Iraqis, city pay price to free Fallujah
Humanitarian crisis worsens as residents flee
FALLUJAH, Iraq — Iraqi forces recaptured Fallujah’s main hospital Saturday, tightening their grip on the center of the Iraqi city that was the first to fall to Islamic State militants two and a half years ago.
After rapid advances a day earlier, fighters with Iraq’s elite special forces stormed the building that was being used as a base for the militants.
“We’ve got the hospital,” said Col. Arkan Fadhil, as he listened to updates from the front line on his radio at a base on the outskirts of Fallujah.
After quick progress in the city 40 miles west of Baghdad, Iraq’s military also announced on Saturday a new operation south of Mosul, the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq.
But defeating the militants comes at a cost, with many displaced and cities left in ruins.
Fallujah’s southern neighborhood of Shouhada bore the scars of fighting. Burned-out shells of cars lay overturned outside buildings riddled with bullet holes.
“They were hiding in these streets, using snipers and car bombs,” said Lt. Gen. Abdelwahab al-Saedi, commander of the Fallujah operation. He said 1,000 militants had been killed in the operation to retake the city.
The gains in Fallujah by Iraq, which is backed by airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, compounded a growing humanitarian crisis in the surrounding western province of Anbar, as thousands of civilians who had been trapped inside the city took advantage of the Islamic State’s collapsing grip to flee.
Aid agencies working with the displaced said they were struggling to provide even basic assistance. Tents had run out, and food and water supplies were dangerously low.
And though Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over Fallujah on Friday, fighting continued Saturday afternoon.
In his televised address, al-Abadi said that some “pockets” of resistance remained in the city but that it was largely under the control of security forces.
Defeating the Islamic State in Fallujah deprives the group of one of its last strongholds in Iraq and gives a boost to the embattled al-Abadi.
Sabah al-Noori, a spokesman for Iraq’s counterterrorism forces, predicted that the entire city would be under the control of Iraqi government forces “soon.” Their next target is the Salahuddin town of Gayara, the military said.
Al-Abadi announced the operation to regain control of Fallujah last month, going against the advice of the U.S. to instead focus on Mosul.
Al-Abadi has been under domestic pressure to score a quick win against the militants after mass street protests in Baghdad against his government. Mosul is a more politically complicated operation, involving coordination between Baghdad and the semiautonomous government in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region.
There have been concerns about the plight of civilians stuck inside Fallujah. When the operation began in late May, as many as 90,000 people were believed trapped in the city, with the Islamic State holding them to use as human shields.
Adding to those worries is the supporting role being played by Shiite militias, which commonly perceive civilians in the Sunni-majority city to be sympathetic to the Sunni extremists. The militia forces have agreed not to enter the city center but have been accused of rights abuses on its outskirts as civilians flee.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said the sudden surge of fleeing civilians was “overwhelming.”
A sudden retreat by Islamic State fighters from key checkpoints in Fallujah allowed residents to leave in “droves,” spokesman Karl Schembri said. The aid group does not have exact figures on how many have left, he said.
“It’s total chaos,” he said. Thousands had slept in the open overnight and were now in the scorching sun as temperatures climbed over 100 degrees, he said. Tents had run out.
“Drinking water remains in dangerously short supply,” he added.
Falah al-Issawi, deputy head of the Anbar provincial council, said 63,000 civilians had fled. The International Organization for Migration put the number at 68,000.
They join hundreds of thousands displaced from other areas of Anbar, including from the provincial capital, Ramadi, which was recaptured at the end of last year. Most have not been allowed to return home because large areas of the city have been reduced to rubble and are not yet cleared of explosives.