Fallujah liberated

Associated Press

FALLUJAH, Iraq

Clumps of hair from hastily shaven beards littered floors and filled wastebaskets in houses in the Iraqi city of Fallujah’s western neighborhood, a dense block of low-rise homes that were the Islamic State militants’ last stand before they largely fled, melting into the sprawling Anbar desert in the face of advancing Iraqi ground forces.

Iraqi officers said they bombed convoys of fleeing militants this week, destroying dozens of vehicles and purportedly killing scores of IS fighters.

But the way IS abandoned the long-held urban stronghold also underscores the group’s ability to adapt and regroup, long after defeat on the battlefield.

In the city’s Julan neighborhood, Iraqi Cpl. Sahar Najim kicked through the refuse of facial hair with his boot, saying that he has seen similar scenes in other cities and towns retaken from IS. As the militants realize they are losing, they quickly shave off their beards to disguise themselves and escape among fleeing civilians, he said.

Losing Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, was a huge blow to the Sunni militant group, depriving it of bomb-making facilities, a safe haven for training recruits and sources of income through taxing the local population.

To the east, in the city’s industrial neighborhood, dozens of car repair shops had been converted into car-bomb factories. A garage still advertising Toyota car repairs was stocked with plastic jugs filled with chemicals.

Iraqi forces declared Fallujah fully liberated Sunday after government troops routed the remaining IS fighters from the city’s north and west under the close cover of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes. The battle, which began May 22, was the latest in a string of territorial defeats for IS in Iraq over the past year.

After declaring Fallujah IS-free, coalition and Iraqi planes attacked a series of convoys of suspected IS fighters and their families outside the city. Two convoys were hit by Iraqi and coalition airstrikes, and a third convoy, outside Ramadi, the provincial capital, also was targeted.

There are concerns that the militants who got away will regroup.

“Of course we are concerned,” coalition spokesman U.S. Army Col. Christopher Garver said about IS fighters who managed to escape and the Islamic State’s ability to morph back into an insurgency. “But we have to defeat them first on the battlefield.”

Some Iraqi officials say the haphazard method in which IS fled – in convoys traversing open desert where the militants were exposed to airstrikes – indicates the extremists are in their last throws and nearing total defeat.