BAGHDAD, Iraq (PNN) - December 29, 2015 - Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi announced Friday that after the city of Ramadi was recovered from Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), the Iraqi army would go on to liberate Mosul (a city of some 2 million before Daesh took it), 260 miles north of Ramadi.
On Friday, the military consolidated its control over territory taken in Ramadi in recent days, including the Hay al-Dubat. State TV on Friday showed piles of ammunition crates, mortar rounds, and plastic gasoline containers filled with explosives it said were found in Ramadi homes.
The fighting is slow going, but the outcome now seems virtually assured, as the Iraqi Army nears within a third of a mile of the key complex of government buildings at the center of the city, which had a pre-Daesh population of some 700,000.
The official Baghdad government-appointed governor of al-Anbar Governorate [Province], Suhaib al-Rawi, came to Ramadi on Friday to walk around the liberated al-Ta'mim district:
Daesh had attempted to assassinate al-Rawi last April, so it was brave of him to show up while Daesh fighters were only half a mile away.
