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Near Fallujah / AFP
Iraqi forces battled the IS group on Monday in the opening stages of an operation to retake Fallujah, one of the toughest targets yet in Baghdad’s war against the extremists.
As Iraqi forces struck targets in and around the extremist bastion, which saw deadly battles in 2004 between insurgents and American forces, IS claimed bombings in neighbouring Syria that killed more than 120 people.
The extremist group has increasingly turned to its traditional tactic of killing civilians in bombings as it faces battlefield losses, and spokesman Abu Mohammed Al-Adnani appeared to acknowledge in a recent statement that IS would probably lose more ground.
“In the early hours of the morning today, the heroic fighters advanced from different sides†to retake “all the areas occupied by (IS) around Fallujahâ€, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi announced in televised remarks.
Abadi said the operation was supposed to start earlier, but “political problems and also the events… threatening security inside Baghdad delayed some of the preparationsâ€.
Iraq has been hit by a months-long political crisis that has paralysed the legislature, and demonstrators have twice broken into the fortified Green Zone area, storming parliament and Abadi’s office.
IS has also carried out a series of deadly attacks in and around Baghdad this month.
Abadi earlier said that special forces, soldiers, police, militia forces and pro-government tribesmen were taking part in the offensive to retake Fallujah in Anbar province just 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad.
Iraqi forces had not yet entered the city, but an AFP photographer near Fallujah said they were advancing while aircraft carried out strikes on targets inside it.
Abadi’s announcement settled the issue of which IS-held city Iraq should seek to retake next—a subject of debate among Iraqi officials and international forces helping Baghdad battle the extremists.
Iraq’s second city Mosul was the US military’s recommended target, but powerful Iraqi militias may have helped force the issue by deploying reinforcements to the Fallujah area in preparation for an assault.