A buoyant Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said his forces will defeat the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the coming year, after the military claimed its first major victory since it was sent fleeing by the group 18 months ago. Iraqi forces flew the national flag above the main government complex in Ramadi on Monday, declaring they had recaptured the city, a provincial capital west of Baghdad.
But there were still pockets of ISIL resistance in and around the city, the army said. “2016 will be the year of the big and final victory, when [ISIL’s] presence in Iraq will be terminated,” Abadi said in a speech. “We are coming to liberate Mosul and it will be the fatal and final blow to [ISIL].”
Mosul, northern Iraq’s main city, is by far the largest population centre in the self-proclaimed caliphate ISIL rules in Iraq and Syria. The army’s capture of the centre of Ramadi, capital of the key Anbar province, marks a major milestone for US-trained forces who crumbled when ISIL fighters surged in June 2014.
In previous battles since then, Iraq’s armed forces operated mainly in a supporting role beside Iranian-backed Shia militias. Soldiers were shown on state television on Monday publicly slaughtering a sheep in an act of celebration.
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