Iraqi forces push into the country’s last IS held town

Iraq’s Defence Ministry says Iraqi forces backed by the U.S.-led coalition have pushed into the last Islamic State group-held town in the country more than three years after the militant group stormed nearly a third of Iraqi territory. (Photo by Jayel Aheram/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Defence Ministry says Iraqi forces backed by the U.S.-led coalition have pushed into the last Islamic State group-held town in the country more than three years after the militant group stormed nearly a third of Iraqi territory.

The ministry says in a statement Friday morning Iraqi military units and local tribal fighters entered the western neighbourhoods of Rawa on the Euphrates River in the western province of Anbar.

IS fighters swept across Iraq’s north and west in the summer of 2014 capturing Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul and advancing to the edges of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Later that year the U.S. began a campaign of airstrikes against the militants that fueled Iraqi territorial gains, allowing the military to retake Mosul in July of this year.