Iraqi PM visits Ramadi, vows to defeat ISIL by end of 2016

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Tuesday visited Ramadi, a day after government forces retook most of the city from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), clinching a major victory and leading the Iraqi premier to vow to rid the country of ISIL by the end of 2016. 

Iraqi military commander Brig. Gen. Ahmed al-Belawi told The Associated Press that Abadi kicked off the visit by meeting security and provincial officials for the latest updates.

In a televised speech Monday, Abadi heralded the military operation that freed the key city from ISIL's control, some seven months after the group took it over. "2016 will be the year of the big and final victory, when [ISIL's] presence in Iraq will be terminated," he said. "We are coming to liberate Mosul, and it will be the fatal and final blow to [ISIL]." 

Across the city, meanwhile, military engineering teams were clearing bombs from the streets and nearby buildings, Belawi said, even as sporadic clashes took place in outlying parts of the city.

Ramadi, the Anbar provincial capital, fell to ISIL in May — a major setback for Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led campaign. Baghdad was quick to announce a counteroffensive to retake the city, but attempts repeatedly stalled.

Then in November, Abadi's forces announced a major push to recapture the city, warning residents to leave and advancing quickly across the Euphrates River. But heavy ISIL resistance, including booby-trapped buildings and sniper fire, slowed progress, and ISIL fighters blew up all bridges leading into the city center.

On Monday, Iraqi forces — backed by U.S.-led airstrikes — drove ISIL fighters out of the city center and raised the Iraqi flag over the government complex there.

As significant — and symbolic — as the action was, Iraqi military officials said ISIL fighters were still holed up in pockets of the city.

Ramadi, about 80 miles west of Baghdad, and nearby Fallujah, which lies halfway on the road to Baghdad and remains under ISIL control, saw some of the heaviest fighting of the eight-year U.S. intervention in Iraq.

Monday's recapture of the government complex and the city’s center is certainly likely to lift the morale of Iraqi forces, who were badly shaken by Ramadi’s fall, which came despite months of U.S.-led airstrikes and advances against ISIL elsewhere in the country.

But ISIL still controls much of northern and western Iraq as well as a large portion of neighboring Syria. It has declared a caliphate in the areas under its control, made Raqqa its de facto Syrian capital and imposed a harsh and violent interpretation of Islamic law.

Iraqi state TV was replaying Monday's footage from Ramadi, showing troops, some waving Iraqi flags and others brandishing machine guns, chanting and dancing inside what it described as the government complex in central Ramadi. Soldiers could be seen slaughtering sheep in celebration near heavily damaged buildings.

Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the head of the U.S. Central Command, congratulated Iraqi forces on the "important operational achievement."

Authorities have not provided casualty figures from the fighting in the city.

Al Jazeera and wire services