Prime minister says forces have defeated Islamic State

BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq declared victory over the Islamic State on Saturday, announcing the end of more than three years of battles to regain control over nearly one-third of the country that had been under the terrorist group’s dominion.

Abadi’s carefully calibrated statement came months after armed forces had wrested back control over Iraq’s major urban areas, notably its second-largest city, Mosul, and had shifted focus to mopping up remnants of the militants who had escaped or gone underground in the vast desert border areas between Iraq and Syria.

“Our forces fully control the Iraqi-Syrian border, and thus we can announce the end of the war against Daesh,” Abadi said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, known as ISIS.

The prime minister’s announcement heralded a significant turnaround for the nation’s armed forces and political leadership from the summer of 2014, when the military, hollowed out by years of corruption and inept political decisions, crumbled under the juggernaut of the Islamic State’s once-formidable fighting force.

Still, security analysts and military commanders warned that the end of largescale military maneuvers did not mean the end of the Islamic State threat.

Hours before Abadi’s speech, a bomb suspected of being planted by insurgents exploded in the center of Tikrit, an area of anti-government activity for many years.

Among the challenges officials now face are reconstruction plans for cities such as Mosul, which was destroyed by the fighting, as well as reconciliation programs for the country’s Sunni and Shiite communities, said Hussein Allawi, a professor of national security at Al Nahrain University in Baghdad.

Some 3 million Iraqis remain displaced by the war, and municipal services have yet to be restored in many liberated areas.

“The battles against Daesh are over, but the war is not,” Allawi said.

Hakim al-Zamili, who leads parliament’s security and defense committee, estimates that 20,000 hard-core supporters of the Islamic State remain in the country.