Iraqi army storms to edge of Islamic State-held Falluja
The Iraqi army stormed to the southern edge of Falluja under US air support on May 30 and captured a police station inside the city limits, launching a direct assault to retake one of the main strongholds of Islamic State militants.
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An elite military unit, the Rapid Response Team, seized the district's police station at midday, state TV reported.
The unit advanced another mile northward, stopping about 500 meters (yards) from the al-Shuhada district, the southeastern part of city's main built-up area, army officers said.
The battle for Falluja is shaping up to be one of the biggest ever fought against Islamic State, in the city where U.S. forces waged the heaviest battles of their 2003-2011 occupation against the Sunni Muslim militant group's precursors.
Falluja is Islamic State's closest bastion to Baghdad, and believed to be the base from which the group has plotted an escalating campaign of suicide bombings against Shi'ite civilians and government targets inside the capital.
As government forces pressed their onslaught, suicide bombers driving a car and a motorcycle blew themselves up in the capital. Along with another bomb planted in a car, they killed more than 20 people and injured more than 50 in three districts of Baghdad, police and medical sources said.
Separately, Kurdish security forces announced advances against Islamic State in northern Iraq, capturing villages from militants outside Mosul, the biggest city under militant control.
The Iraqi army launched its operation to recover Falluja a week ago, first by tightening a six-month-old siege around the city 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad.
Falluja, in the heartland of Sunni Muslim tribes who resent the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad, was the first Iraqi city to fall to Islamic State in January 2014. Months later, the group overran wide areas of the north and west of Iraq, declaring a caliphate including parts of neighboring Syria.
On May 30, army units were "steadily advancing" to Falluja's southern outskirts under air cover from a U.S.-led coalition helping to fight against the militants, according to a military statement read out on state TV.
A Shi'ite militia coalition known as Popular Mobilisation, or Hashid Shaabi, was seeking to consolidate the siege by dislodging militants from Saqlawiya, a village just to the north of Falluja.
The militias, who took the lead in assaults against Islamic State in other parts of Iraq last year, have pledged not to take part in the assault on the mainly Sunni Muslim city itself to avoid aggravating sectarian strife.
Between 500 and 700 militants are in Falluja, according to a U.S. military estimate. The U.S.-led coalition conducted three air strikes near Falluja over the past 24 hours, destroying fighting positions, vehicles, tunnel entrances and denying the militants access to terrain, it said in a statement.
