Liberating Fallujah Op: Iraqi Forces Secure Southern Edge of Daesh-held City
Local Editor
In a new progress towards the city's center, the Iraqi forces secured the southern edge of the Daesh [Arabic Acronym for the terrorist "ISIS"/ "ISIL" group ] stronghold of Fallujah Sunday, two weeks after the launch of an operation to recapture the city.
Iraqi Special Forces, also known as its counterterrorism forces, have secured the agricultural southern neighborhood of Naymiyah, Lt. Gen. Abdel-Wahab al-Saadi said. Special forces are now poised to enter the main city.
The slow-moving Iraqi operation was announced in May. An array of troops including Iraqi military divisions, the federal police and the largely Popular Mobilization forces, had cleared Daesh from the majority of Fallujah's suburbs.
Iraq's elite Special Forces Monday began pushing into the city center, but they have faced stiff resistance as Fallujah has been under Daesh control for more than two years, and the militants have been able to erect complex defenses.
"VIBED! VIBED!" shouted an Iraqi air commander from a small mobile base on Fallujah's southern edge. Using an acronym for a car bomb, the Iraqi special forces officer called to Australian coalition forces over a hand-held radio. Moments later, a plume of white, then black smoke appeared on the horizon. Commanders at the scene said the explosion was created by a coalition rocket destroying the incoming car bomb.
Car bombs were once the most deadly form of Daesh counterattack for Iraq's Special Forces, who have taken the lead in a number of anti-Daesh operations, including in the cities of Tikrit and Ramadi.
Elsewhere, Iraqi forces discovered a mass grave Sunday after retaking an area from Daesh near Fallujah, where the militants are using thousands of civilians as human shields.
Growing numbers of families reaching camps south of Fallujah told horrific accounts of how Daesh shot at them as they fled, but there was still no escape for the tens of thousands believed trapped in the city center.
In Saqlawiya, northwest of Fallujah, Iraqi forces found a burial site thought to contain the bodies of around 400 people, most of them soldiers executed by Daesh in 2014 and 2015. "The security forces of the federal police, the army and the [Popular Mobilization] found a mass grave in the Shuhada neighborhood during a mine clearing operation," a police colonel said.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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