Iraq starts offensive to liberate IS stronghold

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced Monday the beginning of an offensive to liberate the Islamic State (IS) stronghold city of Fallujah in the western province of Anbar.

"The offensive to free Fallujah has begun. The clock of Fallujah liberation has rung, and the moment of great victory has come closer, and way for Daesh (IS group) but to flee," Abadi said in an address to the nation broadcast on the state-run Iraqiya channel.

"Fallujah will return (to Iraqis) as hundreds of villages and towns had returned to its people and were liberated from Daesh's oppression and treachery," Abadi said.

He vowed that all displaced people who left their homes in IS-controlled towns and villages will return to their homes.

A security source in Anbar province told Xinhua that in the early morning hours, Iraqi troops advanced from several directions towards Fallujah, some 50 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, and surrounded several IS-held small towns near Fallujah, including Garma and Saqlawiyah.

On Sunday, Iraqi security forces told the residents remaining in the IS-held city of Fallujah to prepare to leave through safe corridors that will be declared later.

"We ask all the citizens who are still in Fallujah to be prepared to leave the city through safe corridors that will be declared later," the security forces said in a statement.

The statement also called on the citizens of Fallujah to raise white flags on their places, and to stay away from the headquarters and positions of IS militants, which will be targeted by aircraft.

During the past months, Iraq's security forces and allied Shiite and Sunni paramilitary units, known as Hashd Shaabi, have been operating around Fallujah to tighten the grip on the besieged city and the nearby small town of Garma in order to clear IS militants.

Fallujah has been under IS control since early 2014. There is no reliable information about how many civilians remained in the city, which once accommodated about 300,000 people. Non-official figures said thousands of families have been stuck inside with an acute shortage of food and medicine.

The Iraqi security forces have announced safe corridors for the withdrawal of civilians from the besieged city, which has been continuously under shelling and air strikes by the security forces, but extremist militants prevent people from leaving and use them as human shields.

Iraqi government troops and allied militias have been fighting for months to retake control of key cities and towns in Anbar, Iraq's largest province, from IS militants, who previously seized most of Anbar and tried to advance toward Baghdad. Endi