After Ramadi operation, Iraqi forces march towards Mosul

Baghdad

“The smooth victory in Ramadi should be happy news for the residents of Mosul,” Sabah al-Numani, a spokesman for the force leading the fight on the government side. Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi has been quoted as saying the army will move soon to retake the northern city, in what would be the biggest prize.  US officials had hoped Baghdad would launch an assault on Mosul during 2015, but this was put off after the fighters swept into Ramadi in May. 

Dislodging the militants from Mosul, which had a pre-war population close to 2 million, would effectively abolish their state structure in Iraq and deprive them of a major source of funding, which comes partly from oil and partly from fees and taxes on residents. On Sunday, Iraq’s army declared victory over Islamic State fighters, the first major triumph for the U.S.-trained force since it collapsed in the face of an assault by the militants 18 months ago. 

The capture of Ramadi, capital of mainly Sunni-Muslim Anbar province in the Euphrates River valley west of the capital, deprives Islamic State militants of their biggest prize of 2015. The fighters seized it in May after government troops fled in a defeat which prompted Washington to take a hard look at strategy in its ongoing air war against the militants.

Battleground Iraq

• Mosul, Iraq’s 2nd largest city, and its 1. 5million residents have been under IS control since June 2014. 
• IS reportedly funds its operations by selling oil from Mosul’s wells. Retaking it will be tougher for American trained Iraqi troops.
• Islamic State (IS) swept through one third of Iraq in June 2014. 
• Iraqi forces abandoned city after city, leaving fleets of armoured vehicles and other American weapons in the fighters’ hands.
• Ramadi about 55 miles (90km) west of Baghdad, fell to IS in May, and was seen as an embarrassing defeat for the army.   
• Operation to retake Ramadi began in November. 
• A small force of 400 IS men reportedly defended Ramadi.
• It declared a “caliphate” to rule over all Muslims from territory in both Iraq and Syria, carrying out mass killings and imposing a draconian form of Islam. 

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