US spokesman ‘confident’ Ramadi will be freed

WASHINGTON DC – The Baghdad-based spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve on Wednesday praised efforts of Iraqi forces to prepare for the recapture of the ISIS-held city of Ramadi, but declined to say when Anbar province capital would fall.

“This is a tough fight. There's a lot of obstacles. There's a determined, dug-in enemy,” Colonel Steven Warren, told reporters via teleconference in the Pentagon Briefing Room from Baghdad.
 
Warren said Iraqi security forces are consolidating approach routes and organizing operations “on all five axis of attack,” adding that mines, bombs and vehicle-born explosives are the biggest obstacle for Iraqi forces.
 
 “I'm confident that Ramadi will be liberated, but I'm not going to predict a timeline,” Warren said.
 
The so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, took stormed into Ramadi in May, using waves of suicide car bombs to breach government lines and handing the Iraqi Army its worst defeat since the fall of Mosul last year.
 
Warren also updated the latest figures for airstrikes launched by the international coalition to defeat the terror group in Iraq and Syria.
 
“As of today, we have conducted 7,712 airstrikes with 5,032 in Iraq and 2,680 in Syria,” he told the press.
 
Warren rejected that idea that any reduction in the number of attacks was due to Russia’s recent aerial operations in the region.
 
“ It has nothing to do with the Russians. It's really more about the ebb and flow of battle, the pace of battle and where our priority efforts are,” he said.