Skip to main content
Tuesday, November 10, 2026Nov 10
Subscribe
All Sections
Search
More

Iraq begins operation to oust Islamic State group from Anbar

A man inspects the scene of an explosion in a busy commercial area in Baghdad, Iraq Monday, July 13, 2015. A string of car bombs and explosive belts attacks across Baghdad killed and wounded dozens of people on Sunday, Iraqi officials said. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
A man inspects the scene of an explosion in a busy commercial area in Baghdad, Iraq Monday, July 13, 2015. A string of car bombs and explosive belts attacks across Baghdad killed and wounded dozens of people on Sunday, Iraqi officials said. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) A man inspects the scene of an explosion in a busy commercial area in Baghdad, Iraq Monday, July 13, 2015. A string of car bombs and explosive belts attacks across Baghdad killed and wounded dozens of people on Sunday, Iraqi officials said. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

By Associated Press 2 min read

BAGHDAD (AP) – The Iraqi government began on Monday a long-awaited large-scale military operation to dislodge Islamic State militants from Iraq’s western Anbar province, a military spokesman announced.

The spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, said in a televised statement that the operation started at dawn Monday and that government forces are backed by Shiite and Sunni pro-government fighters. Rasool didn’t clarify whether the U.S.-led international coalition is taking part.

This is not the first time the Iraqi government has announced an operation to retake Anbar – where several key towns, including the provincial capital Ramadi, remain under IS control. In May, authorities announced an operation to retake Ramadi, but there has not been any major progress on the ground since then.

The Islamic State group, also known by the Arabic acronym Daesh, seized large parts of Anbar in early 2014 and captured Ramadi in May. Iraqi forces, which had been making steady progress against the extremists in recent months with the help of the air campaign, scored a major victory in recapturing Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit last month.

In a brief statement, Iraq’s Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, vowed to “take revenge from Daesh criminals on the battlefield… and their cowardly crimes against unarmed civilians will only increase our determination to chase them and to expel them from the land of Iraq.”