(2 Jun 2016) Paramilitary and Iraqi government forces on Thursday battled against Islamic State militants in the ongoing operation to retake Fallujah.
The forces claimed that they had been able to destroy trenches and earthworks created by Islamic State militants and had advanced close to the outskirts of Fallujah.
The Iraqi military's advance into Fallujah was stalled on Wednesday by fierce resistance from Islamic State fighters and concerns over protecting tens of thousands of civilians still trapped inside the strategic city, officials had said.
With the operation in its second week, convoys of special forces could only inch forward on the dusty southern outskirts of the city as a handful of airstrikes sent up plumes of white smoke above clusters of low buildings on the fringes of the city's dense urban terrain.
More than 50,000 people are believed to be still inside Fallujah, and the U.N. estimated that 20,000 of them are children, warning that they face a dire humanitarian situation in addition to the risk of forced recruitment by the extremists
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