ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraqi forces reported gains against ISIS in the city of Ramadi in Anbar province, reporting that the militants have lost the will to fight and that government had received reinforcements for a multi-pronged assault.
Azal al-Fahdawi, a member of the Anbar provincial council, told Rudaw on Sunday that Iraqi forces had taken control of the Anbar Traffic department, as well as the neighborhood of Sabaa west of the city.
“After a tense battle, Iraqi forces retook control of the Anbar Traffic directorate's building and the Ramadi neighborhood of Sabaa,” Fahdawi said. “The group’s remaining elements fled to other ISIS-controlled areas in Ramadi,” he said.
“In the next few hours the equations of power will dramatically change in Ramadi, because the ISIS militants have lost their morale and we have received a supporting force to launch a multi-pronged assault inside Ramadi.” Fahdawi announced.
In a separate announcement Farhan Mohammed, another member of the Anbar provincial council, told Rudaw that the battle for Ramadi would take time because the Iraqi forces did not launch an immediate counter-attack against ISIS, after losing Ramadi about a fortnight ago. He ISIS took advantage of time to get more weapons into areas it controls.
Meanwhile, US-led coalition warplanes pounded ISIS munitions dumps in the areas of Jazira and Badiya east of Ramadi, the Iraqi defense ministry said in a statement Sunday.
“The warplanes managed to destroy ISIS bases and arsenals in the towns of Badiya and Jazira, causing heavy casualties among the group's militants in the area and destroying all the ammunitions and weapons in the bases,” it added.
ISIS seized control of the city of Ramadi on May 17, sending Iraqi forces racing out of the city in a major loss despite the support of US-led airstrikes targeting the extremists.
The retreat recalled the collapse of Iraqi police and military forces last summer, when the Islamic State group's initial blitz into Iraq saw it capture about a third of the country. It also calls into questions American officials hopes of relying solely on airstrikes to support the Iraqi forces in expelling ISIS.
