Iraqi military planes dropped leaflets on Sunday on Ramadi, asking residents to leave within 72 hours the western city which is under the control of the Daesh militants, an army spokesman said. "It is an indication that a major military operation to retake the city center will start soon," one officer said on condition of anonymity. The leaflets indicated safe routes for civilians to exit the city and asked them to carry proper identification documents, joint operations spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told Reuters by phone. "All security forces were instructed on how to deal with civilian approaching them." Last week Iraqi security forces said they had made advances on two fronts in Ramadi, clearing the Daesh militants from a military command base and the sprawling neighborhood of Al-Taamim on the western rim of the city that they captured in May. Iraqi intelligence estimates the number of Daesh militants that are entrenched in the centre of Ramadi, capital of the Sunni Anbar province, at between 250 and 300. Iraq's defense minister predicted Saturday that security forces backed by US-led coalition air strikes would retake full control of the city of Ramadi by the end of the year. "I met with the Joint Operations Command and they confirmed to me that we will regain all of the city of Ramadi by the end of this month," Khaled Al-Obeidi told reporters in Baghdad. Earlier this month, forces led by Iraq's elite counter-terrorism service retook Al-Tameem, a southwestern neighborhood of Ramadi from the Daesh group. Daesh took full control of Ramadi in mid-May, in what was Baghdad's most stinging defeat since it launched a counter-offensive to regain the large regions the militants captured in the summer of 2014. The offensive in Al-Tameem this month marked a significant step in long-delayed efforts to recapture the city, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Baghdad and capital of the vast province of Anbar. "The reason the battle took so long was to avoid casualties among our forces and also to avoid civilian casualties," Obeidi said. "There are still many civilians in the city." The Daesh fighters attacking from northwest of Ramadi with suicide car bombs attempted to retake control of the key Palestine bridge in recent days but Iraqi forces still have the upper hand. — Agencies
