FALLUJAH: Iraqi forces took the militant Islamic State group’s last positions in the city of Fallujah on Sunday, establishing full control over one of the jihadists’ most emblematic bastions after a month-long operation.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had already declared victory on June 17 after IS defences collapsed, with Iraqi forces facing only limited resistance in subsequent clearing operations.

The offensive saw tens of thousands of civilians risk death to flee their homes, leaving Iraq to grapple with a humanitarian crisis as its forces prepare to attack the country’s last remaining major IS hub of Mosul.

“The Iraqi security forces now control the whole city of Fallujah,” said Sabah al-Noman, spokesman for the elite counterterrorism service (CTS) that has been leading the fight.

CTS fighters on Sunday eased into Jolan, a north-western neighbourhood of Fallujah where the last IS fighters in the city were believed to be holed up.

“Jolan was Daesh’s last stronghold in the city and Fallujah is now free of the threat posed by Daesh terrorists,” he said, using an Arab acronym for IS.

“It did not take more than two hours for CTS to retake Jolan. Daesh did not fire a single bullet,” Noman said. “This proves that Daesh was defeated even before our forces got there.”

A spokesman for the Joint Operations Command coordinating the fight against IS said some jihadist pockets remained north-west of Fallujah and that the overall operation could not be considered over yet.

Major blow to IS

“We still have an ongoing fight north-west of Fallujah. We never made central Fallujah the ultimate goal of our operation ... the aim is to clear the whole area,” he said.

The offensive began on May 22-23 with an initial phase of staging operations aimed at tightening a months-old siege on Fallujah and led by the Hashed al-Shaabi, a paramilitary organisation dominated by Tehran-backed Shia militias.

Qassem Suleimani, the powerful head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards’ overseas operations arm, was more visible than ever before in Iraq during the early days of the operation.

The US-led coalition offered some aerial support but was less involved than six months ago during the operations to retake Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province in which Fallujah is also located.

The US had favoured focusing the battle on Mosul, the country’s second city, where IS proclaimed a “caliphate” straddling Iraq and Syria two years ago almost to the day.

Abadi has promised Mosul was the next target in the battle against IS and forces have already begun moving from two directions towards Mosul.

While some pockets of IS fighters on the outskirts of Fallujah remain to be flushed out, the jihadist organisation does not appear in a position to contest the area any longer.

The loss of Fallujah, which looms large in jihadist mythology and in 2004 saw US forces suffer some of their worst losses since the Vietnam War, is a blow to IS.

The organisation has lost several key leaders in air strikes, more than two thirds of the territory it controlled in Iraq two years ago and it also faces multiple offensives in Syria.

Humanitarian disaster

Facing a seemingly inexorable decline of its de facto state, IS had reverted to old tactics and recently ramped up bombings against key infrastructure and civilian targets.

Few major attacks have been reported in Baghdad since the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramazan however.

The aid community was largely caught flat-footed however by the scope of the humanitarian crisis that resulted from mass displacement out of Fallujah.

According to the United Nations, 85,000 people were forced to flee their homes over the past month, leaving many crammed in hastily set-up camps with scant food or water.

The Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the leading groups that has provided assistance to the displaced since the start of the operation, warned that the crisis was serious.

“With every day that passes in the camps, the conditions for some of the most vulnerable keep deteriorating. Doctors are warning of impending disaster,” NRC’s Iraq director Nasr Muflahi warned on Saturday.

There are no figures on the number of civilian casualties during the Fallujah operation but they are believed to be much lower than when US forces stormed the city in 2004.

Iraqi commanders have not divulged combatant casualties either but the influx of wounded in Baghdad hospitals and the number of burials in Najaf, home to Iraq’s largest cemetery, suggest the security forces paid a heavy price.

According to an official in Basra, at least 100 members of the security forces from the southern province have been confirmed killed during the Fallujah offensive.

Cities and towns retaken from IS in Iraq and Syria

Here is a recap of key cities and towns retaken from IS in Iraq and neighbouring Syria:

FALLUJAH: Anbar province’s second city and one of IS’s most emblematic bastions in the country, located just 50 kilometres from Baghdad. It was seized by anti-government fighters in 2014 and later became a key IS stronghold.

While the battle has been won, Iraq still faces a major humanitarian crisis in its aftermath, with tens of thousands of people who fled the fighting desperately in need of assistance in the searing summer heat.

RAMADI: The capital of Anbar, the country’s largest province that stretches from the borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to just west of the capital.

IS seized Ramadi, located 100 kilometres west of Baghdad, in May 2015 in an assault involving dozens of suicide bombers driving explosives-rigged vehicles. Iraqi forces launched an operation to retake the city late last year and declared full control over the area earlier this year.

TIKRIT: Hometown of late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein located 160 kilometres north of Baghdad, it was the second city after Mosul to fall to IS. It was recaptured in April 2015 by Iraqi troops, police and Shia-dominated paramilitaries. The operation, which was at that time the largest by Iraqi forces against IS, was helped by the fact that much of Tikrit’s civilian population had fled the city.

SINJAR: Iraqi Kurdish forces backed by US-led coalition air strikes recaptured Sinjar, 400 kilometres north-west of Baghdad, from IS last November. That cut a key supply line linking areas held by the jihadists in Iraq and Syria. IS captured Sinjar in August 2014 and carried out a brutal campaign against its Yazidi minority that included massacres, enslavement and rape.

BAIJI: Iraqi forces recaptured the town of Baiji, 200 kilometres north of Baghdadin October 2015.

Baiji and the country’s largest refinery, located nearby, were the scenes of some of the longest-running battles with IS in Iraq. The town lies at a major crossroads and its recapture was seen as key to preparing the ground for offensives in Anbar and Mosul, the last major Iraqi city held by IS.

PALMYRA: Known as the “Pearl of the Desert”, Palmyra was overrun by IS in May 2015, after which the jihadists blew up Unesco-listed temples and looted ancient relics.

Syrian regime forces backed by Russian warplanes and allied militia retook the ancient city from IS in March this year.

KOBANE: A Kurdish town in northern Syria on the Turkish border. It became a symbol of the fight against IS, and the jihadists were driven out of Kobane in January 2015 after more than four months of fierce fighting with Kurdish forces backed by US-led strikes.

The city, known in Arabic as Ain al-Arab, is the capital of one of three semi-autonomous “cantons” established by Kurds after the Syrian war erupted.

TAL ABYAD: Another city on the Turkish border, it was captured by Kurds in June 2015. Tal Abyad lies on a key supply route between Turkey and IS stronghold Raqa, and jihadist fighters and arms regularly passed through the city before its recapture.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2016