Daesh loses large part of Ramadi

BAGHDAD: Iraqi security forces on Tuesday recaptured a large area on the southwestern side of Ramadi from the Daesh group, which overran the city in May, officials said.

Retaking the Al-Tameem area from Daesh is a significant breakthrough for Iraqi forces, which have been fighting for months to secure territory around Ramadi, a major city west of Baghdad and the capital of the vast Anbar province.
“Today, our forces completely cleared the Al-Tameem area after a fierce battle against Daesh gunmen,” Sabah Al-Noman, the spokesman for Iraq’s counter-terrorism service, said.
Daesh terrorists “had no choice except to surrender or fight and they were completely destroyed,” Noman said.
Maj. Gen. Hadi Irzayij, the police chief for Anbar, confirmed that Al-Tameem had been retaken as did Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, the spokesman for the Joint Operations Command.
“The liberation of Al-Tameem will greatly help in speeding up the liberation of the city of Ramadi,” Rasool said. “Iraqi forces are ready and close to entering the center of the city,” Irzayij said.
Iraqi forces were working to clear bombs planted by Daesh in Al-Tameem, which is bordered by a branch of the Euphrates River that divides it from the next militant-held area.
Daesh overran large parts of Iraq in June 2014, including major territory in Anbar, which stretches from the borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to the western approach to Baghdad.
Shifting parts of Ramadi, located 100 km from Baghdad, had been held by anti-government fighters since the beginning of 2014. But Daesh did not succeeded in completely overrunning it until May of this year.
Meanwhile, Turkey has halted a deployment of troops to northern Iraq but will not obey Iraq’s request to withdraw those already there, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, insisting they had been sent with Iraq’s knowledge to help fight Daesh.
The arrival of a heavily armed Turkish contingent at a camp near the frontline close to the city of Mosul has added yet another controversial deployment to a war against Daesh that has drawn in most of the world’s major powers.
Ankara says its troops are in Iraq to train Iraqi forces. “Training at this camp began with the knowledge of the Iraqi Defence Ministry and police,” Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.