ISIS slows down advancing Iraqi army in Ramadi
BAGHDAD - Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters are putting up a tough fight in the militant-held city of Ramadi, slowing down the advance of Iraqi forces, a senior Iraqi commander said Sunday.
About five days ago, Iraq launched the long-awaited operation to retake the Anbar provincial capital, which was captured by ISIS militants in May, reports CBS News correspondent Debora Patta. But after an initial push across the Euphrates River, their progress stalled.
Gun battles raged on the streets of Ramadi today as Iraqi soldiers pushed to retake the city. An Iraqi military source says Ramadi could fall within hours, but the U.S. Defense Department could not confirm those reports.
Troops inched forward street by street securing a path to its intended target, a government compound held by ISIS fighters in the city center.
Gen. Ismail al-Mahlawi, head of the Anbar military operations, told The Associated Press that the advance was hampered by suicide bombers, snipers and booby traps.
Iraqi troops will "need days" to get to the city's central government complex, said al-Mahlawi, adding that the troops were about a half mile from the complex on Sunday.
Al-Mahlawi said he could neither confirm nor deny media reports that ISIS fighters had pulled out of the government complex by nightfall Sunday. But he cited residents in the area as telling his troops that the ISIS militants had withdrawn from the neighborhood of Albu Alwan, adjacent to the complex.
Another officer said the Iraqi army has yet to gain full control of a single Ramadi neighborhood. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
On Tuesday, Iraqi security forces reported progress in recapturing some areas in the western city of Ramadi, 80 miles west of Baghdad, from ISIS militants.
The extremists control large swaths of land in western and northern Iraq and in neighboring Syria. The ISIS group has declared a self-styled caliphate on the territory under its control.
After overrunning Ramadi, ISIS destroyed all the bridges around the city. It also demolished the Anbar operations command center and fanned out into the city's residential areas to set up less conspicuous centers of command.
Research firm IHS, which has been monitoring the conflicts in Iraq and Syria ,recently published an analysis suggesting that ISIS has consistently lost territory month-over-month throughout 2015. Using open source intelligence, including social media and sources inside the countries, the team at IHS estimated that ISIS' "caliphate" shrunk by 14 percent since the beginning of 2015.