BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Islamic State group (ISIS) is on its last breath in the city of Ramadi, where it is blowing up homes to punish young men who have fled and joined the Iraqi Army, an Iraqi officer and the government said.
"In retaliation for the (men) fleeing Ramadi and joining the Iraqi army, ISIS has turned to blow up civilian homes in the area of Albu Isa in eastern Ramadi," Brig Gen. Ismail Mahlawi, commander of the Anbar operation command, said Wednesday.
They want to “avenge the advances of the Iraqi army through bombing civilian homes in Ramadi," he said, adding he believes this is the beginning of the end for the Islamic State group in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi cabinet claimed in a news release on Monday that ISIS is on a major defensive in Ramadi and that eight ISIS militants were killed during an attack by Iraqi warplanes in Ramadi on the same day.
“Iraqi warplanes targeted ISIS strongholds in Ramadi and managed to kill eight militants and destroy a vehicle and a barrel bomb,” the cabinet said in a statement.
ISIS seized Ramadi on May 17, 2015 and has controlled most of Anbar -- the largest province in Iraq -- since its lightning campaign across Iraq in 2014.
Some 10,000 Iraqi soldiers, policemen, fighters of the Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi militia and tribal forces have been fighting to clear Anbar of ISIS since June, but without any significant advances.
