A senior officer from the counter-terrorism forces, the elite U.S.-trained units which led the recapture of nearby Ramadi three months ago, said his troops were one kilometer from the town center, 130 km west of the capital Baghdad.The recapture of Hit, strategically located on the Euphrates River near Ain al-Asad air base where several hundred U.S. forces are training Iraqi army troops, would push ISIL further west towards the Syrian border, cutting a connection to the northern town of Samarra and leaving Fallujah their only stronghold near the capital.
Baghdad has had success in pushing back the militants in recent months and has pledged to retake the northern city of Mosul later this year, but progress has often been fitful.
Another officer, on a frontline less than 3 km from Hit, said the operation had begun at early in the morning and was progressing swiftly.
“There are some IEDs along the movement but it’s still good to go and we are moving,” he said by phone.
In a statement announcing the advance, the military said the offensive was backed by airstrikes from the Iraqi army and air force as well as the international coalition fighting ISIL in the areas of Iraq and neighboring Syria where the militants declared a “caliphate” in 2014.
The statement called on civilians in Hit, thought to number in the tens of thousands, to move away from ISIL positions: “Those targets will be destroyed”.