Iraq girds for fierce fight for Islamic State-held Fallujah
CAMP TARIQ, Iraq — Elite Iraqi special forces began their push Monday into Fallujah, expecting to encounter the stiffest resistance yet in the campaign to free territory from the Islamic State group.
The city 40 miles west of Baghdad has been under militant control longer than any other part of Iraq, and fighters have had more than two years to dig in. Networks of tunnels like those found in other Islamic State-held territory have already been discovered in its northeastern outskirts.
The Iraqi troops, also known as the counterterrorism forces, are leading the assault on Fallujah, moving up from the south in armored Humvees.
Their advance is expected to be slow because tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped in Fallujah and hidden bombs are believed to have been left throughout the city, according to special forces commanders at the scene. They expect fierce resistance from the jihadis, who have nowhere to run.
“This is the decisive battle for us and for Daesh,” said Gen. Saad Harbiya, head of Fallujah operations for the Iraqi army, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
The offensive, supported by airstrikes from the U.S.led coalition, was launched a week ago. In that time, other wings of Iraq’s security forces have cleared the city’s edges, taking back 80 percent of the territory around Fallujah, according to Iraqi Maj. Dhia Thamir.
The predominantly Sunni city in Anbar province is one of the last major Islamic State strongholds in Iraq. The extremist group still controls territory in the north and west, as well as the secondlargest city of Mosul.
The 500-700 fighters in Fallujah are expected to be some of the group’s besttrained, a special forces commander said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.
The counterterrorism forces started pushing into Fallujah from its southern edge at dawn, said Brig. Haider al-Obeidi. He described the fighting as “fierce,” with Islamic State deploying snipers and firing mortar rounds.
Humanitarian groups say that as the violence intensifies, their concerns for civilians trapped inside Fallujah mount.
“With every moment that passes, their need for safe exits becomes more critical,” said Nasr Muflahi, the country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council, an international humanitarian group active in Anbar province.
Islamic State extremists, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for a wave of bombings Monday in and around the capital that killed at least 24 people and injured about 50.
The deadliest of the blasts took place in a Shiitedominated neighborhood of Baghdad, where a suicide car bomber rammed into a checkpoint next to a commercial area, killing eight civilians and three soldiers, police said.
In the town of Tarmiyah, a suicide car bomber struck an outdoor market, killing seven civilians and three policemen, according to police.
And in Baghdad’s eastern Shiite Sadr City district, a bomb on a motorcycle went off at a market, killing three, police said.