Iraq retakes Rawa, last Daesh town in the country

Iraqi forces on Friday captured the border town of Rawa, the last remaining town under Daesh control, signalling the collapse of the group’s self-proclaimed territory.
Rawa’s capture marks the end of Daesh’s era of territorial rule over a so-called caliphate that it proclaimed in 2014 across vast swathes of Iraq and Syria.
Iraqi forces “liberated Rawa entirely, and raised the Iraqi flag over its buildings,” Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah said in a statement from the Joint Operations Command.
Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi congratulated Iraq’s armed forces and people, saying Rawa was retaken in record time and that Iraq would soon completely defeat Daesh.
“I congratulate our heroic forces and the Iraqi people on the liberation of Rawa. The success of our forces, in record time and with excellent planning, shows their strength. Our armed forces continue to secure the Jazira and desert area and the Iraqi border. Total victory is near,” he said.
Iraqi forces will now focus on routing the militants who fled into the desert and exert control over Iraq’s borders, the spokesman said.
A map published by the military showed zero areas under Daesh control and a spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting the group in both Iraq and Syria said on Twitter it had “crumbled.”
A video issued by the military showed Iraqi forces sending a message to Rawa’s residents via radio which said: “Daesh has ended for good, and now the age of Iraq begins.”