Retaking it would give the government control of the main population
centres in the fertile Euphrates River valley west of the capital for
the first time in more than two years.
Islamic State fighters halted an Iraqi army assault on the city of Falluja with a counter-attack at its southern gates on Tuesday, while the United Nations warned of peril for civilians trapped in the city and used by militants as human shields.
The Iraqi army's assault on Falluja has
begun what is expected to be one of the biggest battles ever fought
against Islamic State, with the government backed by world powers
including the United States and Iran, and determined to win back the
first major Iraqi city that fell to the group in 2014.
A
week after Baghdad announced the start of the assault, its troops
advanced in large numbers into the city limits for the first time on
Monday, pouring into rural territory on its southern outskirts but
stopping short of the main built-up area.
Baghdad
describes the assault to retake the city as a potential turning point in
its U.S.-backed campaign to defeat the ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim
militants who rule a self-proclaimed caliphate across much of Iraq and
Syria.
Falluja,
where U.S. troops fought the biggest battles of their own 2003-2011
occupation against Islamic State's precursors, is the militants' closest
bastion to Baghdad, believed to be the base from which they have waged a
campaign of suicide bombings on the capital less than an hour's drive
away.
Retaking it would give the government
control of the main population centres in the fertile Euphrates River
valley west of the capital for the first time in more than two years.
But
the assault is also a test of the army's ability to capture territory
while protecting civilians. Although most of Falluja's population is
believed to have fled during six months of siege, 50,000 people are
still thought to be trapped inside with limited access to food, water or
healthcare.
"HUMAN CATASTROPHE UNFOLDING"
“A human catastrophe is unfolding in Falluja. Families are caught in the crossfire with no safe way out,” said Jan Egeland, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the organisations helping families displaced form the city.
“Warring parties must guarantee civilians safe exit now, before it’s too late and more lives are lost,” he said.
The
United Nations said there were reports that the militants were using
several hundred families as human shields in the city centre, a tactic
they have employed in other locations in Iraq. It said 3,700 people had
managed to escape the city in the past week.
"Most
people able to get out come from the outskirts of Falluja. For some
time militants have been controlling movements, we know civilians have
been prevented from fleeing," said Ariane Rummery, spokeswoman for UN refugee agency UNHCR.
"There
are also reports from people who left in recent days that they are
being required to move with ISIL within Falluja," she said, using an
acronym for Islamic State, also known as ISIS or Daesh.
Soldiers
from Iraq's elite Rapid Response Team stopped their advance overnight
about 500 meters (yards) from the al-Shuhada district, the southeastern
part of city's main built-up area, an army commander and a police
officer said.
MILITANTS DUG IN
"Our
forces came under heavy fire, they are well dug in in trenches and
tunnels," said the commander speaking in Camp Tariq, the rear army base
south of Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad.
Reuters
journalists in the area could hear explosions from artillery shelling
and air strikes from a U.S.-led coalition supporting the Iraqi forces.
A
staff member of Falluja's main hospital said it received reports of 32
civilians killed on Monday. Medical sources had reported that the death
toll in the city stood at about 50 -- 30 civilians and 20 militants --
during the first week of the offensive which had yet to involve street
fighting.
Foreign aid organisations are not present in Falluja but are providing help in camps to those who manage to exit.
Falluja
is the second-largest Iraqi city still under control of the militants,
after Mosul, their de facto capital in the north that had a pre-war
population of about 2 million.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi
announced the assault on Falluja on May 22 after a spate of bombings
that killed more than 150 people in one week in Baghdad, the worst death
toll so far this year. A series of bombings claimed by Islamic State
also hit Baghdad on Monday, killing more than 20 people.
In Washington, U.S. officials said the Falluja operation would take time to complete, without giving a timetable.
"The
Falluja offensive is tough ... They have faced a lot of heavy fighting
in the past couple of days, machine gun fire, artillery fire, not to
mention the constant threat of IEDs," Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff
Davis said on Tuesday.
POLITICAL PRESSURE ON ABADI
The
worsening security situation in the capital has added to political
pressure on Abadi, a member of Iraq's Shi'ite majority who is trying to
hold a ruling coalition together in the face of public protests against
an entrenched political class.
He has called for politicians to set aside their differences and rally behind the army during the Falluja offensive.
Shi'ite
militia groups backed by Iran are also taking part in the offensive
against Islamic State, but are holding back from participating in the
main assault on Falluja to avoid inflaming sectarian tension.
Reuters
journalists saw hundreds of Shi'ite militia fighters rallying at one
location near Saqlawiya, a village north of Fallluja still under IS
control.
The United States is leading a coalition
conducting air strikes in support of the Iraqi government offensive, and
says it is having success in rolling back Islamic State.
In
neighbouring Syria, U.S. forces have also aided mainly Kurdish fighters
who have seized territory from the militants, as has the Russian-backed
government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Falluja
has been a bastion of the Sunni insurgency that fought both the U.S.
occupation of Iraq and the Shi'ite-led Baghdad government that took over
after the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003.
It
would be the third major city in Iraq recaptured by the government
after Saddam's home town Tikrit and Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's vast
western Anbar province, which also includes Falluja.
Source: Pulse.ng
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