FALLUJAH: Iraqi forces hunted down holdout terrorists in Fallujah Saturday after retaking the city center and trained their sights on Mosul, Daesh’s last remaining major hub in the country.
While not fully under government control yet, Fallujah is the latest in a string of battlefields losses for Daesh, which has seen its two-year-old “caliphate” shrink significantly in recent months.
Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi on Friday declared Fallujah retaken after the national flag was raised over the main government compound but Daesh terrorists still hold most northern neighborhoods.
Elite Iraqi forces “are continuing their progress in the liberation of neighborhoods in northern Fallujah,” Lt. Gen. Abdulwahab Al-Saadi, the overall commander of the operation, said.
Forces led by the police of Anbar province, where Fallujah is located, were meanwhile combing reconquered southern neighborhoods for pockets of Daesh fighters and explosive devices, he said.
Abadi announced the recapture of the city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, in December but the security forces only established full control over the city in February.
Saadi and other commanders said Iraqi forces faced only limited resistance during the major advance that saw them push into the heart of Fallujah and clinch a breakthrough in the four-week-old operation.
Security sources said Daesh terrorists have been slipping out of the city by blending in with civilians fleeing the fighting.
Daesh’s retreat in Fallujah sparked what the Norwegian Refugee Council described as “an unprecedented tidal wave of mass displacement from Fallujah.”
It said late Friday that up to 20,000 people fled the city in just a few hours.
Footage on social media showed hundreds of people swimming across the Euphrates to reach safety.
“It is unknown how many families are still trapped inside Fallujah but we are concerned they are the most vulnerable — pregnant women, elderly people, people with disabilities,” the NRC said. Building on the momentum of the Fallujah operation, Iraq announced Saturday that joint Kurdish-federal forces were starting a new phase in the push on Mosul from the south.
Abadi ignored US advice to focus on Mosul last month when he declared the launch of the Fallujah operation but he vowed on Friday that the liberation of the northern city was “very near.”
Patrick Martin, Iraq analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, argued that Daesh could survive the loss of Fallujah.
Iraq forces hunt Daesh in Fallujah and eye Mosul
Iraq forces hunt Daesh in Fallujah and eye Mosul
Fledgling radio station aims to be ‘voice of the people’ in Gaza
- The electricity crisis is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip, says Shereen Khalifa Broadcaster
DEIR EL-BALAH: From a small studio in the central city of Deir El-Balah, Sylvia Hassan’s voice echoes across the Gaza Strip, broadcast on one of the Palestinian territory’s first radio stations to hit the airwaves after two years of war.
Hassan, a radio host on fledgling station “Here Gaza,” delivers her broadcast from a well-lit room, as members of the technical team check levels and mix backing tracks on a sound deck. “This radio station was a dream we worked to achieve for many long months and sometimes without sleep,” Hassan said.
“It was a challenge for us, and a story of resilience.”
Hassan said the station would focus on social issues and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which remains grave in the territory despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas since October.
“The radio station’s goal is to be the voice of the people in the Gaza Strip and to express their problems and suffering, especially after the war,” said Shereen Khalifa, part of the broadcasting team.
“There are many issues that people need to voice.” Most of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people were displaced at least once during the gruelling war.
Many still live in tents with little or no sanitation.
The war also decimated Gaza’s telecommunications and electricity infrastructure, compounding the challenges in reviving the territory’s local media landscape. “The electricity problem is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip,” said Khalifa.
“We have solar power, but sometimes it doesn’t work well, so we have to rely on an external generator,” she added.
The station’s launch is funded by the EU and overseen by Filastiniyat, an organization that supports Palestinian women journalists, and the media center at the An-Najah National University in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.
The station plans to broadcast for two hours per day from Gaza and for longer from Nablus. It is available on FM and online.
Khalifa said that stable internet access had been one of the biggest obstacles in setting up the station, but that it was now broadcasting uninterrupted audio.
The Gaza Strip, a tiny territory surrounded by Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea, has been under Israeli blockade even before the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which sparked the war. Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to strictly control the entry of all goods and people to the territory.
“Under the siege, it is natural that modern equipment necessary for radio broadcasting cannot enter, so we have made the most of what is available,” she said.
