Beyond Falluja: The Battle for Falluja and the Coming Battle for Mosul

  On June 18, after almost a month of a siege, Iraqi PM Haydar al-‘Abadi announced the liberation of Falluja[1]. Iraqi forces, made of elite counter-terrorism units, regular army and police, entered the besieged city from the south and raised the Iraqi flag over its municipality building. At present, fighting still takes place in some areas, particularly al-Jawlan neighborhood, but the Iraqi army captures new urban areas every day and reportedly is about to complete the taking of the city within days[2]. In general, IS did not offer serious resistance: according to Iraqi sources IS suffered 377-500 casualties in Falluja and many of its men either fled or joined the convoys of displaced Fallujans, reaching shelters in Ameriyat al-Falluja.[3]   The Iraqi success in Falluja was preceded by the taking of vast areas in the west of Iraq including Ramadi (December 2015), Hit, Kubaisa (April 2016) and Rutba (May 2016). Yet , the western parts of Anbar province  including the towns of Rawa, ‘Ana and al-Qaim (on the Syrian border) are still controlled by the IS and the strategic town Haditha , situated near an important dam, is still under partial IS siege.   Falluja was the first Iraqi city to fall to the IS in early 2014. Its closeness to Baghdad made it a prime target since it posed a threat to the Iraqi capital. Shii militias constantly requested giving priority to the occupation of Falluja. However, their requests were turned down before. In April 2016, following the swift taking of Rutba, speakers of the Iraqi army still declared that the following offensives will target the remaining enclaves along the Syrian and Jordanian borders.[4] This could have been a ruse. However, turning on Falluja coincided with the serious political crisis in Baghdad, which included a break of demonstrators into the “Green Zone”. Possibly, ‘Abadi changed military plans to hush the political outcry and steal the limelight from Muqtada al-Sadr. Indeed, complaints against