BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces wrested back the final piece of the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate, the country’s military said on Friday, reclaiming the small town of Rawa near the border with Syria.
The Islamic State extremist group, which at its peak in 2014 held about one-third of Iraq including large cities like Mosul, Tikrit and Fallujah, is now scattered and severely diminished. With the loss of Rawa, the extremists can no longer claim to hold territory in Iraq and are quickly ceding ground in Syria as well.
Still, Iraqi officials warn, the Islamic State poses a threat as it turns to more traditional terrorist tactics. Since losing its de-facto capital of Mosul in July, the militant group has been able to stage deadly suicide bombings and its gunmen have struck civilians throughout Iraq.
Rawa is a small and sparsely populated town about 68 miles east of the Syrian border, which was surrounded by Iraqi forces for several weeks as they worked to clear the nearby towns of Qaim and Ana. Iraqi troops, backed by militia fighters and U.S. airstrikes, entered Rawa early Friday and encountered little resistance, commanders said.
Brig. Gen. Yehya Rasool, a spokesman for the Iraqi forces, said the fight in Rawa lasted about five hours after troops entered the town. He said “a limited number” of militants had been inside Rawa and they “couldn’t withstand our forces.
“Some of them died and others fled toward the desert,” he added.
Rasool said combat operations are ongoing, with troops chasing fleeing militants into the vast western Anbar desert. He said the lack of civilians in the desert will allow government forces to use heavy airstrikes to root out the remaining pockets of resistance.
On Friday afternoon, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi congratulated the Iraqi forces “in record time” in a statement that stopped short of declaring full victory over the Islamic State.
He said troops will continue to fight in the desert and work toward securing the nearby border with Syria.
“Daesh crumbles!” the spokesman for the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition said in a twitter post, using the Arabic acronym for the militant group. “Iraqi Security Forces liberate Rawa, last urban area in Iraq held by ISIS.”
Though small and largely devoid of its original residents, who slowly left during more than three years of Islamic State occupation, the towns of Qaim, Rawa and Ana represent a critical strategic win for Iraq.
The three towns, which sit along with Euphrates River, are the gateway to Syria further west. Controlling them essentially cuts the Islamic State’s ability to move fighters, vehicles and other resources between Iraq and the territory it still has nominal control over in eastern Syria.
While state television heralded the victory in Rawa, there was a generally muted response in Iraq to the development.
Since winning back Mosul in July, and later the smaller but populous towns of Tal Afar and Hawija, Iraqis have largely considered themselves on a post-Islamic State footing — grappling with the aftermath of the destructive battles that it took to uproot the militants.
Large swaths of Mosul remain totally devastated while basic electricity and water services have yet to return to areas retaken more than a year ago in Fallujah.
Some 3.2 million people displaced by the fighting remain in camps while independent organizations say the civilian death toll from the U.S.-led air-war is much more massive than has been announced.
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