BAGHDAD: About 700 Daesh (ISIS) fighters were believed to be hiding in the center and eastern outskirts of Ramadi Wednesday, three days after Iraqi government forces claimed victory over the militants in the western city, the U.S.-led coalition said.
The U.N. refugee agency, assisting families who have left the Anbar provincial capital, said that despite gains by security forces, conditions were not yet good enough for tens of thousands of displaced residents to return. “There is extensive destruction in the city as a result of terrorist activity and military operations,” said Ibrahim al-Osej, a member of the Ramadi district council.
Much of the center of Ramadi, which previously had a population exceeding 400,000, still needs to be cleared of explosives laid by the militants who seized the city 100 km west of Baghdad in May, the coalition said. “Preliminary estimates show that more than 3,000 homes have been completely destroyed” in Ramadi, Osej said.
He said that the figure would grow because assessments could not be immediately carried out in some neighborhoods that had not been cleared of mines.
“Thousands of other homes have suffered varying degrees of damage,” Osej said.
“All water, electricity, sewage and other infrastructure – such as bridges, government facilities, hospitals and schools – have suffered some degree of damage,” he said.
In the center of Ramadi, which lies on the Euphrates River, “there are five bridges in various states of destruction,” U.S. operations officer Maj. Michael Filanowski said Wednesday.
“For all of them at least the span has dropped,” he said, adding that he estimated it would take at least weeks to repair them. After months of cautious advances backed by coalition airstrikes, the Iraqi army retook Ramadi Sunday, its first big victory against the hard-line Islamists since they swept through a third of Iraq in mid-2014.
“Within what we call central Ramadi, they estimate still up to 400 Daesh members, and then, once you go east of that toward Fallujah, you’ve got about 300 out there in that direction,” U.S. Army Capt. Chance McCraw, a coalition intelligence officer, told reporters in Baghdad.
Some of these Daesh militants could try to attack Iraqi forces or returning civilians with snipers and bomb attacks.
Security sources said insurgents clashed with federal police and tribal fighters Wednesday in Husaiba al-Sharqiya and Jweba, on the eastern fringes of Ramadi. There was no immediate confirmed information on casualties.
“In central Ramadi the house-borne IED [improvised explosive device] continues to be a threat even once CTS [counterterrorism service] goes through and that’s why you don’t see civilians moving back into various areas,” McCraw said.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi Wednesday ordered the immediate formation of a high-level committee including the Anbar governor and senior federal government officials to stabilize and rebuild Ramadi.
He called for the immediate removal of explosives and the restoration of basic services to allow the safe return of civilians to their homes.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke to Abadi Wednesday and offered U.N. support to help restore basic services in Ramadi to allow civilians to return, a U.N. spokesman said in a statement.
The U.N. estimates initial reconstruction needs in Ramadi require about $20 million, but the longer term outlay is likely to be much greater for a city battered by U.S. airstrikes and Daesh explosives over the past six months.
“Areas are still insecure, littered with IEDs, and there has been extensive damage of public buildings and houses. Electricity and water services have been damaged,” the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said Wednesday.
The Iraqi Trade Ministry said it was preparing to send emergency food aid to Ramadi.
Some districts of the city are littered with explosives.
McCraw said that in one of the more heavily defended areas, Iraqi forces had found about 300 explosives planted along a 150-meter stretch south of the main government complex. After clearing that area, they found more bombs scattered every 50 meters or so, he said.
Nearly 1.4 million people have been displaced from all of Anbar province, according to U.N. estimates. Iraq’s government says most civilians fled Ramadi before its assault on the city.
McCraw and other coalition officials declined to estimate how long it would take Iraqi forces to secure the whole city. They said about 400 members of the Anbar police had arrived to help hold areas cleared by better trained and equipped counterterrorism forces that spearheaded the Ramadi operation.
Abadi has pledged to retake Mosul, 400 km north of Baghdad, next year and said this would deal a final blow to Daesh. It is the largest Iraqi city under the group’s control and is expected to be harder to recapture than Ramadi.
Baghdad has said Sunni tribal fighters will make up the main holding force in Ramadi, a role played in other areas taken from Daesh by mainly Iranian-backed Shiite armed groups, but the latter were held back from Ramadi for fear of stoking sectarian tensions.
The coalition said its advisers were not on the ground during the Ramadi battle but provided training and equipment to Iraqi forces.
No comments:
Post a Comment