ISIS booby-trapped houses

About 700 ISIS fighters are believed to be hiding in the centre and eastern outskirts of Ramadi days after Iraqi forces claimed victory over the militants in the western city, the US-led coalition said on Wednesday.

Much of the centre of the Anbar provincial capital still needs to be cleared of explosives laid by the jihadist insurgents who had seized the city in May, the coalition said. That will delay the return of tens of thousands of civilians who fled to Baghdad and other parts of Iraq.

After months of cautious advances backed by coalition airstrikes, the Iraqi Army retook Ramadi on Sunday in its first big victory against the hardline Sunni Islamists who swept through a third of Iraq in 2014.

“Within what we call central Ramadi they estimate still upto 400 Daesh (ISIS) members and then once you go east of that towards Falluja you’ve got about 300 out there in that direction,” US Army Captain Chance McCraw, a coalition intelligence officer, told reporters in Baghdad.

“In central Ramadi, the house-borne IED (improvised explosive device) continues to be a threat even once CTS (counter-terrorism service) goes through and that’s why you don’t see civilians moving back into various areas,” he added.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Wednesday ordered the immediate formation of a high-level committee including the Anbar governor and senior federal government officials to stabilise and rebuild Ramadi.

He urged the immediate removal of explosives and the restoration of basic services.