“Islamic State Militants” Flee Ramadi Stronghold Amid Iraqi Offensive A victory against the extremists would be the third in as many months in the country By Matt Bradley and Ghassan Adnan see note
http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-state-militants-flee-ramadi-stronghold-amid-iraqi-offensive-1451232693
These barbarians are now called “Islamic State Militants” instead of terrorists?……rsk
BAGHDAD—Islamic State fighters fled their last bastion in the center of the city of Ramadi on Sunday, putting Iraqi forces and their allies within reach of their third major victory in as many months against the extremist group.
Though the Iraqi forces have built up momentum against the militants, Islamic State still controls major cities and vast territory in both Iraq and Syria and has carried out or inspired recent terror attacks from Paris to California.
State television beamed images of young men cheering, dancing and singing in streets across Iraq while greeting passing soldiers, even though the army hadn’t yet declared Ramadi completely under its control.
Security forces have encircled a former government compound that was the last area of the city held by Islamic State and prepared a final push to clear out any remaining fighters and explosives, Iraqi officials said. A number of Iraqi leaders said they were confident the city would fall imminently, once the army cleared hundreds of land mines and other explosives.
“Our forces reached the government compound and surrounded it,” said Capt. Rami Emad, a military spokesman. “We don’t think the forces will enter the compound tonight since it has become dark and they are clearing the surrounding roads and buildings of improvised explosive devices.”
The recapture of Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad and the capital of Anbar province, would be the third success for Iraqi security forces and allied paramilitary groups in three months. They retook the oil refining town of Beiji in October and in November, Iraqi Kurdish forces drove the Sunni Muslim extremist group out of the strategic city of Sinjar.
“These are big blows to Daesh,” said Brig. Gen. Ahmed al-Bilawi, a commander of the Anbar Emergency Police Unit, using another name for Islamic State. “It’s very clear that Daesh is going down, having lost battles in Beiji, Sinjar and now Ramadi.”
As Iraqi troops closed in Saturday on the compound where the last militants were holding out, Islamic State released a rare audio recording purportedly by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group’s reclusive leader. The 24-minute message amounted to a plea for fortitude from his supporters in the face of what he described as recent hardships and tragedies.
A decisive victory in Sunni-majority Ramadi would augur well for the coming battle to retake the Sunni-majority Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and Islamic State’s main stronghold in Iraq. It could also strengthen Iraq’s fractured national unity and soothe sectarian conflict in this Shiite-dominated country where Sunnis often complain of discrimination.
“My eyes are filled with tears now upon hearing that security forces managed to defeat Daesh in Ramadi,” said Sheikh Ghazi al-Goud, a member of parliament from Anbar province. “This is a victory for all Iraqis. Iraqis proved through the Ramadi fight that they are united, Sunnis and Shiite.”
a neighborhood in Ramadi on Sunday. Photo: ahmad al-rubaye/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Sunday marked the first time that Iraqi troops were able to penetrate the former government compound in a five-day offensive to reclaim the city center. Fewer than 200 Islamic State fighters were believed to be left there before they fled.
By late in the day, Islamic State militants were fleeing to Ramadi’s eastern suburbs along with their families and civilian hostages they had been using as human shields, a security official said.
But progress remained slow as Iraqi troops picked their way through cratered city streets and booby-trapped buildings left behind by more than a month of almost continuous fighting, military officials said.
ENLARGE
The Iraqi military credited its success in Ramadi to a fresh round of American training and new weapons supplies. Over the past year, American-led coalition forces have trained some 15,000 Iraqi troops with a focus on basic military skills and coordinating air, artillery and ground forces, said Col. Steve Warren, the Pentagon spokesman.
“The coalition congratulates the Iraqi security forces for their continued success against ISIL in Ramadi,” said Col. Warren, using an acronym for Islamic State.
Ramadi Key Facts
• Population: 700,000 to 900,000 before the latest conflict
• Location: About 60 miles west of the capital Baghdad
• Religion: Majority Sunni Muslim
• Strategic Importance: The city is close to Baghdad and the capital of Sunni-dominated Anbar province
• Symbolic Importance: Shows the ability of Iraq’s battered military and will stand as a model for how to retake Sunni-majority Mosul.
He said the U.S.-led coalition had supported them with 600 airstrikes since July.”
In the past week, the U.S.-led coalition has conducted at least 32 airstrikes in Ramadi. On Saturday, coalition warplanes targeted a factory where Islamic State produces vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices. The coalition said it had also hit sniper, machine gun and grenade launching positions in Ramadi in the past few days.
“Our air coalition is proud to support brave Iraqi troops as they defeat ISIL in Ramadi,” said Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition. “Support will continue until all areas are liberated.”
Jon Alterman, director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies’s Middle East program, said the gains in Ramadi show that U.S. and Iraqi forces are improving coordination.
“The U.S. brings things to this fight in terms of intelligence, in terms of tactics, in terms of integrating what happens on the ground and what happens in the air, and the Iraqis are learning to operate in that environment,” Mr. Alterman said.
While earlier this year, U.S. officials said they hoped Iraqi forces would mount an offensive to take back Mosul in the spring, those plans were sidelined once the militant group made gains in Anbar province and Ramadi fell in May.
The relatively slow pace of progress for the Iraqi forces this year calls into question whether they can retake Mosul next year, said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“I think it will happen,” he said. “In practice it could take the better part of 2016 or the whole part to be able to have the capacity for the Iraqi army to do it.”
And retaking Ramadi doesn’t guarantee a broader victory over Islamic State.
“In principle, it’s fairly hard for ISIL to feel good about its position. It’s not as if it can hold these cities against the Iraqi army with American air power and other coalition air power,” Mr. O’Hanlon said.
“But the sheer quantitative requirement for the remaining task is roughly five times of what’s just been done, and it took a year to rebuild the Iraqi army to the point where they could do just Ramadi plus a couple of smaller places.”
Still the troops on the ground in Ramadi are displaying a newfound confidence, bolstered by an order last summer for some 2,000 AT-4, shoulder-fired, antitank rockets from the U.S.
The combination of new training and equipment prevented about 90% of truck bombs, a crucial Islamic State weapon, from ever reaching their targets, Col. Warren said.
The training focused on applying air and land attacks in concert—and it paid off on the battlefield.
“What really distinguished the Ramadi fight was the high-level coordination among all forces on the fight—I mean the air force, artillery and coalition forces,” said Col. Mohamed Ibrahim, a spokesman for the federal police and a member of Iraq’s joint operations command, which coordinates with the U.S.-led coalition.
The benefit of the training was most obvious on the first day of battle Tuesday, when Iraqi army engineers laid pontoon bridges across the Euphrates River—imitating a maneuver they had been taught only weeks before.
“The enemy never thought we would do it this way,” Col. Ibrahim said.
“The enemy couldn’t contain their surprise and fell in complete confusion.”
Having surprised Islamic State fighters once, Iraqi troops did it again.
Instead of pushing north straight into the government center as the insurgents expected, they outflanked them by heading west, occupying a nearby neighborhood called al-Houz, said Col. Ibrahim.
The evasive maneuver allowed Iraqi troops to isolate hundreds of Islamic State holdouts in the government district.
For Iraqi troops, Islamic State’s reliance on booby traps and land mines smacked of cowardice.
“Daesh was not fighting us like real men, Daesh was only leaving IEDs and booby traps,” said Brig. Gen. Bilawi.
“This gave us unbelievable confidence in our capabilities and helped a lot in winning the fight in Ramadi.”
—Felicia Schwartz and Ben Kesling contributed to this article.
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