FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) – Dozens of homes were looted and burned as Fallujah was liberated from the Islamic State group, and Iraqi government forces Monday accused the retreating militants. Some provincial police, however, blamed the fires on Shiite militias operating with the federal police.
The allegations of sectarian incidents in Fallujah are on a much smaller scale than those that unfolded in another Sunni-majority city, Tikrit, after government-sanctioned Shiite militias helped retake it from the IS group. The Iraqi government had sought to try to prevent similar abuses in the Fallujah campaign.
Iraqi forces declared Sunday they had “fully liberated” Fallujah from the Sunni-led extremist group that took over the city 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad more than two years ago. The operation, backed by airstrikes from a U.S.-led coalition, began May 22, and involved a number of different Iraqi security forces: elite special operations troops, federal police, Anbar provincial police, and an umbrella group of government-approved mostly Shiite militias.
Thick clouds of black smoke billowed over the Julan neighborhood in northwestern Fallujah, one of the last strongholds of the militants, from dozens of burning homes.
Special forces Lt. Gen. Abdul Wahab al-Saadi who led the operation to retake the city, said IS militants had torched hundreds of houses in Fallujah’s north and west as they fled Sunday, just as the fighters did in many other neighborhoods in the last five weeks.