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MIDDLE EAST
Iraqi Forces Enter Falluja, Encountering Little Fight From ISIS


By TIM ARANGOJUNE 17, 2016
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An Iraqi Army vehicle in Falluja, Iraq, on Friday. Counterterrorism forces raised the Iraqi flag over the city’s main government building after weeks of fighting with the Islamic State. CreditThaier Al-Sudani/Reuters

BAGHDAD — After weeks of fighting, Iraqi forces entered central areas of Falluja on Friday, facing little resistance by the Islamic State, as thousands of civilians fled in a new wave of displacement that has overwhelmed the ability of aid agencies to care for them.

Counterterrorism forces raised the Iraqi flag over the main government building in central Falluja, about 40 miles west of Baghdad, and they moved on to besiege the city’s main hospital, which was the first target of American forces when they invaded the city in 2004, according to officers and news reports on state television.

The rapid, and unexpected, gains suggested a shift in tactics by the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, or perhaps a sign of their weakness, as they abandoned their dug-in positions and regrouped in western neighborhoods. That allowed thousands of civilians, which aid groups had said were being held as human shields, to flee across two bridges over the Euphrates River beginning on Thursday.

Even as the battle appeared far from over, Iraqi commanders on the ground were optimistic that the advance, which had slowed in the face of Islamic State snipers, roadside bombs and tunnel networks that allowed fighters to move around undetected, would continue.

“ISIS has lost its power to defend Falluja,” Col. Jamal Lateef, a police commander in Anbar Province, said in an interview. “Its defensive lines have collapsed, and the battle of Falluja will be over in no time.”

Lt. Gen. Adbulwahab al-Saadi, a commander of Iraq’s counterterrorism forces who is in charge of the Falluja operation, said in a brief telephone interview that “ISIS has collapsed in Falluja very fast,” and he said his forces were moving to northern and western neighborhoods.

The United States, which has led a coalition targeting the Islamic State with airstrikes for almost two years in Iraq, has supported the battle for Falluja with air power, even as it has raised concerns about the role of Shiite militias backed by Iran in the fight. Washington has expressed fear that the participation of Shiite forces in assaulting a Sunni city like Falluja would heighten sectarian tensions. In a statement released on Friday, the American military said it had struck two targets near Falluja on Thursday, destroying six heavy machine guns and 10 Islamic State fighting positions.

Falluja has been in the hands of the Islamic State since the end of 2013, longer than any other settlement in its so-called caliphate that straddles parts of Iraq and Syria. The city was a stronghold, and something of a birthplace, for Al Qaeda in Iraq, the precursor of the Islamic State, that formed to fight the United States after the invasion of 2003.

In Falluja, the Islamic State exploited the grievances of the Sunni population toward the sectarian policies of the former prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and was able to rapidly take control of the city two and a half years ago after Iraqi security forces assaulted a protest camp in the city.