BAGHDAD - Iraqi security forces recaptured a large part of the city of Ramadi from the Islamic State group Tuesday, officials said, scoring a significant breakthrough in their fightback against the militants.
Baghdad's forces have been fighting for months to secure territory around Ramadi, the capital of the vast Anbar province, and retaking the Al-Tameem area is an important step in the battle for the major city west of Baghdad.
Warplanes from the US-led coalition battling IS have backed them in the fighting, carrying out more than 45 air strikes in the Ramadi area in the past week. "Today, our forces completely cleared the Al-Tameem area after a fierce battle against Daesh gunmen," Sabah al-Noman, the spokesman for Iraq's counter-terrorism service, told AFP, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
IS fighters "had no choice except to surrender or fight and they were completely destroyed," Noman said.
Major General Hadi Irzayij, the police chief for Anbar, confirmed that Al-Tameem had been retaken as did Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, the spokesman for the Joint Operations Command. "The liberation of Al-Tameem will greatly help in speeding up the liberation of the city of Ramadi," Rasool said. "Iraqi forces are ready and close to entering the centre of the city," Irzayij said.
Al-Tameem lies to the southwest of IS-held central Ramadi and Iraqi forces now need to make matching advances to the north in order to attack the militants from both sides. For now, they are working to clear bombs planted by IS - a favoured tactic of the militants that means they can kill security personnel and civilians long after they have withdrawn from an area.
"The process of removing bombs from the houses and roads has begun," Irzayij said.
Rasool said large amounts of weapons and supplies had been found, as well as explosives-rigged vehicles.
IS overran large parts of Iraq in June 2014, including major territory in Anbar, which stretches from the borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to the western approach to Baghdad.
Shifting parts of Ramadi, located 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Baghdad, had been held by anti-government fighters since the beginning of 2014, but IS did not succeeded in completely overrunning it until May of this year.
On Monday, coalition aircraft targeted IS units, fighting positions, vehicles and supplies, as well as machineguns and a mortar system used by the militants, according to a statement on the strikes.
International support in the form of strikes, training and arms plays an important role in Iraq's battle against IS, but Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is walking a fine line between receiving that assistance and projecting sovereignty.
Iraq is in a row with Turkey over the deployment of up to 300 soldiers and 20 tanks to a base in the country's north where Ankara's forces have trained Sunnis who have volunteered to fight IS.
Baghdad on Monday gave Ankara 48 hours to remove the newly deployed forces, but said the ultimatum did not apply to Turkish advisers in the country.
Abadi also made a series of increasingly strident statements about foreign forces in the country last week after remarks by US officials about sending additional troops to Iraq sparked a major political backlash. He said the deployment of foreign combat ground forces to Iraq was a "hostile act," but was also careful to make clear that Baghdad still welcomes other forms of assistance.
Meanwhile, Turkey has halted a deployment of troops to northern Iraq but will not obey Iraq's request to withdraw those already there, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, insisting they had been sent with Iraq's knowledge to help fight Islamic State.
The arrival of a heavily armed Turkish contingent at a camp near the frontline close to the city of Mosul has added yet another controversial deployment to a war against Islamic State that has drawn in most of the world's major powers.
Russia, already furious after Turkey shot down one of its jets flying a sortie over Syria last month, said it considered the presence of the Turkish forces in Iraq illegal.
Ankara says its troops are in Iraq to train Iraqi forces. "Training at this camp began with the knowledge of the Iraqi Defence Ministry and police," Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a meeting of deputies from his ruling AK Party.
In the last few days, Baghdad has denied that it knew about the mission and said it would go to the United Nations Security Council if the troops were not pulled out by Tuesday.
In a phone conversation with his Iraqi counterpart late on Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu emphasised Ankara's respect for Iraq's territorial integrity, spokesman Tanju Bilgic told reporters.
"He (Cavusoglu) said that our activities aimed to contribute to the struggle against Daesh (Islamic State) in Iraq and reiterated that the deployment had stopped," Bilgic said. "There is no withdrawal at the moment, but the deployment has stopped."
Davutoglu said he wanted to visit Baghdad as soon as possible to calm the row, saying the troops were intended to protect the training mission against attack by Islamic State. "Those who make different interpretations of the Turkish military presence in Mosul are involved in deliberate provocation," he told the deputies.
While attention was focused on the dispute with Baghdad, Davutoglu made clear that the sharp deterioration in ties with Russia remained high on the agenda, with Turkey's cabinet discussing possible measures against Moscow on Monday.
"We are ready for talks and every kind of exchange of ideas with Russia but will never allow anything to be dictated to us," he said. "In the face of Russia's sanctions, we will implement our own sanctions if we regard it necessary."
Russia has imposed a raft of economic sanctions on Turkey since its fighter jet was shot down near the Syrian-Turkish border last month in disputed circumstances. Davutoglu said steps were being to support Turkey's exporters and tourism sector.
Russia's increasing involvement in the Syrian conflict has put it at odds with Turkey, which has strongly supported rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad.
President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that this support would continue, reiterating a demand for the creation of "safe zones" in northern Syria to protect displaced civilians and stop the flow of refugees.
"We are insisting on the creation of safe zones free of terror and the rapid implementation of our train-and-equip proposal for moderate rebels," he said in a speech.
Davutoglu for his part criticised "insults and attacks" directed at Turkey from within Iran, which, like Russia, is giving Assad wide-ranging military support.
He did not specify which comments he meant, but said: If these attitudes continue, the traditional Turkey-Iran friendship will suffer great harm ... I know the Russian and Iranian people do not share this hostile stance of their leaders towards Turkey."