Baghdad: Iraqi forces thrust into the city of Fallujah from three directions today marking a new and perilous urban phase in the week-old operation to retake the jihadist bastion.
The drive to recapture the first city to be lost from government control in 2014 came as fighting also raged in neighbouring Syria, leaving huge numbers of civilians exposed. Led by the elite counter-terrorism service (CTS), Iraq’s best trained and most seasoned fighting unit, the forces pushed into Fallujah before dawn, commanders said.
“Iraqi forces entered Fallujah under air cover from the international coalition, the Iraqi air force and army aviation, and supported by artillery and tanks,” said Lieutenant General Abdelwahab al-Saadi, the commander of the operation.
“CTS forces, the Anbar (provincial) police and the Iraqi army, at around 4.00 am (0100 GMT), started moving into Fallujah from three directions,” he said.
“There is resistance from Daesh,” he added, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
CTS spokesman Sabah al-Noman told AFP: “We started early this morning our operations to break into Fallujah.”
The involvement of the elite CTS marks the start of a phase of urban combat in a city where in 2004 US forces fought some of their toughest battles since the Vietnam War. The week-old operation had previously focused on retaking rural areas around Fallujah, which lies just 50 km west of Baghdad.
It had been led by the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force, which is dominated by Tehran-backed Shiite militias.(AFP)
