It said 3,700 people had managed to escape the city in the past week. Iraqi forces help families fleeing the city of Fallujah. The United Nations said there were reports the militants were using several hundred families as human shields in the city centre, a tactic they have employed in other locations in Iraq. "Warring parties must guarantee civilians safe exit now, before it's too late and more lives are lost," he said. 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. "A human catastrophe is unfolding in Fallujah. "But it could come at the price of tens of thousands of people being killed." 'Human catastrophe unfolding' "If they simply want to bomb and bombard their way into Fallujah, they can finish it off in a week," Professor Barton said. Greg Barton, professor of Global Islamic Politics at Deakin University, said the outcome would depend upon what price the Iraqi Government is prepared to pay. Although most of Fallujah'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.įallujah remains a symbol of Islamic State's rise to power, and with an estimated 1,000 militants within the city's borders the group is expected to put up a strong fight. 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.īut the assault is also a test of the army's ability to capture territory while protecting civilians. It is 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. Iraqi forces push into IS-held city of Fallujah Fallujah a symbol of Islamic State's powerįallujah, where US troops fought the biggest battles of their own 2003-2011 occupation, is the militants' closest bastion to Baghdad. The assault on Fallujah 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.īaghdad describes the assault to retake the city as a potential turning point in its US-backed campaign to defeat the ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim militants who rule a self-proclaimed caliphate across much of Iraq and Syria.
"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 Fallujah, 50 kilometres west of Baghdad. Soldiers from Iraq's elite Rapid Response Team stopped their advance overnight about 500 metres from the al-Shuhada district, the southeastern part of city's main built-up area, an army commander and a police officer said. But it's not an easy battle."Ī 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.
"It was very fierce but we finished them off and continued our advance. "They launched a counter-attack in the early hours of the morning," Iraqi general Abd al-Wahhab al-Saadi said. The Government did not discuss casualties on its own side, but a staff member at Fallujah's main hospital said it received reports of 32 civilians killed on Monday. The Iraqi Government said the Islamic State counter-attack involved about 100 heavily armed militants, 75 of whom were killed.
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