Reuters, Baghdad :A triumphant Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared on Monday that the coming year will see his forces defeat Islamic State, after his military achieved its first major victory since collapsing in the face of the fighters 18 months ago.Iraqi forces flew the national flag above the main government complex in Ramadi earlier in the day, declaring they had recaptured the city, a provincial capital west of Baghdad which fell to Islamic State fighters in May.”2016 will be the year of the big and final victory, when Daesh’s presence in Iraq will be terminated,” Abadi said in a speech broadcast on state television, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State that the hardline group rejects.”We are coming to liberate Mosul and it will be the fatal and final blow to Daesh,” he added. Mosul, northern Iraq’s main city, is by far the largest population centre in the self-proclaimed caliphate Islamic State rules in Iraq and Syria.The army’s apparent capture of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province in the Euphrates River valley west of Baghdad, marks a major milestone for U.S.-trained force that crumbled when Islamic State fighters charged into Iraq in June 2014. In previous battles since then, Iraq’s armed forces operated mainly in a supporting role beside Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias.Soldiers were shown on state television on Monday publicly slaughtering a sheep in an act of celebration.Gunshots and an explosion could be heard as a state TV reporter interviewed other soldiers celebrating the victory with their automatic weapons held in the air. A separate plume of smoke could be seen nearby.U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren, a spokesman for a U.S.-led coalition backing Iraqi forces, said in a statement: “The clearance of the government centre is a significant accomplishment and is the result of many months of hard work.”He said the coalition had provided more than 630 airstrikes in the area over the past six months as well as training, advice and equipment to the army, counter-terrorism forces and police.The U.S.-led coalition, which includes major European and Arab powers, has been waging an air campaign against Islamic State positions in both Iraq and Syria since a third of Iraqi territory fell to the fighters in mid-2014.The Iraqi army was humiliated in that advance, abandoning city after city and leaving fleets of American armoured vehicles and other weapons in the militants’ hands. One of the main challenges of the conflict since then has been rebuilding Iraq’s army into a force capable of capturing and holding territory.Baghdad has said for months that it would prove its forces’ rebuilt capability by rolling back militant advances in Anbar, a mainly Sunni province encompassing the fertile Euphrates River valley from Baghdad’s outskirts to the Syrian border.After encircling the provincial capital for weeks, Iraqi forces launched an assault to retake it last week and made a final push to seize the central administration complex on Sunday. Their progress had been slowed by explosives planted in streets and booby-trapped buildings.
