Iraqi Military Clearing Last Neighborhoods of Fallujah

J. Dana Stuster, The Foreign Policy 

24 June 2016 

Image: Iraqi Military Clearing Last Neighborhoods of Fallujah, The Foreign Policy 

The Iraqi military is clearing the last two neighborhoods of Fallujah occupied by the Islamic State, according to the Iraqi commander in charge of the operation. The only resistance the Iraqi troops are still encountering is in the neighborhoods of Jolan and Al-Muallemin. A senior Iraqi counterterrorism official told AFP that civilians who fled Fallujah will be allowed to reenter the city soon. “In the next few days or weeks, families should return, once their cases have been approved by the city council,” he said.

As operations in Fallujah wind down, attention is shifting to preparations for the operation to retake Mosul. Though Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the top U.S. military official in Iraq, has not requested more U.S. troops, discussions among military planners are underway to determine whether more U.S. forces will be necessary. There are currently 3,600 U.S. troops in Iraq and up to 4,087 are authorized to operate in the country.

Days after stripping the country’s most prominent Shia cleric of his citizenship, the government of Bahrain summoned five Shia clerics for questioning. A Bahraini court also began a hearing to dissolve al-Wefaq, the country’s largest political opposition group, this week, but the judicial proceedings were suspended until September to allow al-Wefaq to prepare a defense. Bahraini authorities also sentenced 24 people of plotting to establish an Islamic State cell and facilitating travel to fight in Syria. Thirteen of the defendants were stripped of their citizenship, though only eight of the defendants are held by the Bahraini government and the remaining 16 were tried in absentia.

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© 2016, The Foreign Policy

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