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Ramadi liberation significant victory: Analyst

Tuesday, 29 December 2015 5:11 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 30 December 2015 7:07 AM ]

Iraqi security forces pose for pictures with their national flag in front of the heavily damaged Anbar police headquarters after recapturing the city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, Iraq, December 28, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

Press TV has interviewed Richard Becker, with the ANSWER Coalition, and Frederick Peterson, a congressional defense policy adviser, to discuss the liberation of the central Iraqi city of Ramadi from Takfiri Daesh terrorists.

Becker said the liberation of Ramadi from Daesh seems to be a “significant victory” particularly after the developments of 2014, when the Iraqi army fled from cities and allowed the terrorists to occupy the northern and western swaths of Iraq.

Daesh has suffered a series of defeats in the cities of Sinjar, Tikrit and now in Ramadi, and it is now facing difficulty to hold Fallujah, he said.

“There has to be a major political step forward or this [violence] will continue in Iraq for a very long time,” he says.

Pointing to the role of the Sunni forces in defeating terrorist groups in Iraq, the activist said, “Al-Qaeda in Iraq was defeated by Sunni forces in Anbar province in particular,” because different sects in Iraq are against living under the control of al-Qaeda or Daesh organizations.

Peterson, for his part, hails the recapture of the city of Ramadi, but he warns that the Iraqi military forces have “to hold the whole city” and they also have a hard job to liberate the northern strategic city of Mosul.

He urges the Iraqi government to deploy sufficient military forces in Ramadi to make sure that the city will not be retaken by the terrorists.

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