BAGHDAD — More than six months after falling to the Islamic State, the city center of Ramadi is under siege by Iraqi security forces and tribal fighters backed by American air power. Commanders say that as few as 300 militants remain holed up inside, behind a defense of elaborate tunnels, booby-trapped buildings and roads laced with hidden bombs.
As Iraqi soldiers and tribal fighters have advanced on the city, clearing the outlying neighborhoods in preparation for what is expected to be a grueling and bloody fight for the center, they have discovered the things left behind by the Islamic State: lists of former government workers who repented to save their lives, and lists of others believed to have been executed; marriage certificates stamped by an Islamic State court; the bodies of militants.
Civilians, raising white flags to approaching soldiers, have raced to safety under a hail of gunfire by Islamic State fighters who sought to use them as human shields. Others have had to pay hefty bribes to fighters to be allowed to leave.
“The condition of families under the control of ISIS is tragic,” Abu Hussein, who escaped recently, said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. “They do not let people out, and food and medication is running low because of the siege on all exits of the city.”
After months of false starts and unfulfilled promises of quick gains by Iraqi and American leaders, the campaign for Ramadi — the capital of Anbar, a vast Sunni-dominated region in western Iraq — has finally yielded some success. Iraqi security forces and Sunni tribal fighters trained and equipped by the United States have in recent days taken Ramadi’s largest neighborhood and captured the building that was the headquarters of the Anbar Operations Command, and they are bearing down on the city’s center.
“A number of areas have been liberated, and we are seeing great victories on the ground, and the security forces have fully surrounded the city,” said Sheikh Sufyan al-Ethawi, a tribal leader in Anbar.
What remains is a tough, urban battle for Ramadi, which fell to the Islamic State in May, and some officials say it could be weeks before the city is finally liberated from the Islamic State, also known as ISIL.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/12/world/middleeast/iraqi-campaign-to-retake-ramadi-from-isis-makes-gains.html?ref=world&_r=0
