What’s Going On In Iraqi Offensive to Retake Fallujah From ISIS

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LUIS MARTINEZ,ABC News

The Iraqi ground offensive to retake the ISIS-held city of Fallujah began early Monday with Iraqi military forces pressing outside the city located 40 miles west of Baghdad.

Retaking the city in Anbar Province has been a priority for the Iraqi government since it was one of the first places in the country seized by ISIS in early 2014. According to American military officials, the number of ISIS fighters in the province has fallen to 1,000 as ISIS has sustained battlefield defeats in recent months.

The Fallujah military operation was announced late Sunday night by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi who said Iraqi forces are “approaching a moment of great victory” against ISIS in the wake of recent victories in the far western town of Rutbah and other towns in the Euphrates River Valley.

WHAT IS THE IRAQI MILITARY DOING IN FALLUJAH?

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said Monday that the Iraqi military had begun to conduct “shaping operations” on the outside of Fallujah and had not entered the city proper. “Fallujah is important,” said Davis. “It’s the last remaining stronghold within Anbar Province. It’s the ISIS position closest to Baghdad and a place we’re going to be working very closely with Iraqi partners to retake.”

The Fallujah operation involves forces from the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police. “Those forces have already begun to move on the city where they’re encountering some resistance,” said Davis. The shaping also involves striking at targets inside the city and “dropping leaflets meant to inform civilian populations to avoid ISIS areas,” Davis said. “They’ve been asking people to place white sheets on their roof to market their locations.”

While the U.S. is supporting the Iraqi military offensive in Fallujah, it is still not cooperating with the Iranian-backed Shiite militias, known the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), arrayed north of the city.

Davis said he did not know what the role of the Shiite militias would be in Fallujah though “they have a largely a relationship of coexistence with Iraqi forces and are aligned against ISIS”.

The coalition has supported the ground operation with airstrikes before the offensive, 21 in Fallujah since May 17, according to Davis. Iraq has not requested the use of American Apache helicopters based in Iraq as part of the Fallujah operation though they remain available if needed.

WHY AN OFFENSIVE NOW?

Fallujah was the first Iraqi city seized by ISIS in early 2014, as the group found early support among the dominant Sunni Muslim population that resented the policies by the Shiite-led government of former Prime Minister Maliki.

Since then, retaking the city has been a priority for the Iraqi government, even though it may not be as tactically important as it once was.

The U.S. military believes about 1,000 ISIS fighters remain in Anbar Province with ISIS numbers decreasing as the result of recent Iraqi military victories in Rutbah and Hit in the Euphrates River Valley. Davis said many ISIS fighters had already left Anbar and particularly Fallujah which he described as “a distant outpost for them” that has been “hard to sustain over time.”

Two Iraqi Army brigades have been encircling the city for months in anticipation of a planned offensive which seemed to await the slow progress of the Iraqi military in retaking Ramaadi to the southwest.

IS FALLUJAH IMPORTANT FOR RETAKING MOSUL?

ISIS still controls significant area of Iraqi territory in the northern part of the country including Mosul, the country’s second largest city. Much of the American-led training effort of Iraq’s military has been geared towards generating the forces needed to retake Mosul in a future offensive.

Two weeks ago, Col. Steve Warren, the U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said retaking Fallujah was not a military prerequisite for an offensive towards Mosul and that doing so would be an Iraqi “political decision.”

He anticipated that retaking the city would be “a tough note for the Iraqis to crack” given that the city had been under ISIS control for more than two years.

The pace of the Iraqi-led operation and sequencing of the operation will be up to the Iraqis, similar to the effort to retake the much larger city of Ramadi which lasted for months.

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