Alwaght- Iraqi security forces, backed by Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), have fully liberated al Qaim city in western Anbar from ISIS Takfiri terrorists, military sources announced on Friday.
Sources say Iraqi troops have raised the Iraqi flag over a number of government buildings in the center of al Qaim city.
Some Iraqi military units have stepped up security measures to prevent fleeing ISIS terrorists from returning to the city, the sources noted.
Earlier on Friday, Staff Major General Noman Abed al-Zobai, the commander of the 7th Division, said troops from the Iraqi army and the elite Counter Terrorism Service “have started the assault on the center of al-Qaim,”
Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (Hashd al-Sha’abi) said in a statement that terrorist had set fire to civilians’ houses in the southwestern neighborhood to make it hard to see them from the air.
It also said that several ISIS members had fled across the border towards the Syrian town of Albu Kamal in the eastern Deir ez-Zor Province.
Iraqi government troops - backed by Popular Mobilization Forces, launched the offensive on the al-Qaim region - which also includes the smaller town of Rawa - last Thursday to finish off a punishing campaign that saw it force the ISIS terrorists out of their major urban stronghold Mosul in July.
Under ISIS, the town has been a vital supply route between its forces in Iraq and the oil-rich province of Deir ez-Zor it once dominated over the border in Syria.
While ISIS’ physical caliphate has crumbled, its deviant Saudi-backed Wahhabi ideology is still pervasive throughout ungoverned territories in West Asia, North Africa, West Africa and the Horn of Africa.
