Iraqi troops edge closer to recapturing Ramadi

Iraqi troops pushed deeper into the heart of the last remaining district held by the Islamic State as efforts to retake the city of Ramadi continued.

Soldiers advanced in the Hoz neighbourhood that houses the provincial government compound, the target of an attack that started on Tuesday.

Troops were filmed walking freely through the area, inspecting the damage from air strikes as smoke rose in the distance.

Lt. General Abdul-Ghani al-Asadi, commander of Iraq’s anti-terrorism contingent, said that troops would be in control of Ramadi in a matter of days.

“God willing in the next few days. We don’t want to fix an exact time for security reasons, but our troops will take over the entire city of Ramadi,” Al-Asadi said.

Recapturing Ramadi, which fell to the militants in May, would be one of the most important victories for Iraq’s armed forces since Islamic State swept across a third of the country in 2014.

Ramadi was the Islamic State’s biggest prize of 2015, abandoned by government forces in May in a major setback for Baghdad and for the Iraqi troops that have been trained by the United States since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

After Ramadi, the army plans to move to retake the northern city of Mosul, the biggest population centre under Islamic State control in Iraq and Syria.

Dislodging the militants from Mosul, which had a pre-war population close to 2 million, would effectively abolish their state structure in Iraq and deprive them of a major source of funding, which comes partly from oil and partly from fees and taxes on residents.

The Iraqi government forces are backed by air support from an international coalition led by the United States.