Iraqi PM visits Ramadi after declaring Isis will be ‘terminated’ in 2016

The Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has arrived in Ramadi a day after his government declared the city liberated from Islamic State.

 

Abadi kicked off his tour with meetings with security and provincial officials, reports said. The recapture of the city, where the Iraqi flag was raised on Monday over government buildings that had served as Isis’s base in Ramadi, marks a key victory against the jihadis.

 

The prime minister declared in a speech broadcast on state television that Isis would soon be cleared from the country. “2016 will be the year of the big and final victory, when Daesh’s presence in Iraq will be terminated,” he said, using an Arabic name for the group.

 

“We are coming to liberate Mosul and it will be the fatal and final blow to Daesh,” he added. Mosul, the main city in northern Iraq, is by far the largest population centre in territory held by Isis in Iraq and Syria.

 

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