[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Iraqi forces Friday captured the biggest town under ISIS group control in Iraq, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said, driving another nail into the coffin of the holy warriors' self-styled caliphate.Abadi hailed the "liberation of al-Qaim in record time" in a statement, just hours after Iraqi troops backed up by local Sunni tribal militia fighters entered the key town on the border with Syria.
The fall of al-Qaim leaves ISIS fighters in Iraq holding just the smaller neighboring town of Rawa and surrounding pockets of barren desert along the Euphrates river.
That is all that remains in the country from the vast swathes of territory that the group seized in 2014 as it rampaged across Iraq and neighboring Syria.
But the town appeared to have fallen in lightning time after commanders announced that Iraqi troops pushed into the town of some 50,000 inhabitants on Friday morning.
Commanders said that forces have unleashed a barrage of artillery fire against holy warrior positions inside the town, backed by Iraqi and US-led coalition air strikes.
Troops from the army and the elite Counter Terrorism Service "have started the assault on the center of al-Qaim," Staff Major General Noman Abed al-Zobai, the commander of the 7th Division, told AFP from the scene on Fridat.
Shortly afterwards, another officer said on condition of anonymity that the town’s Gazoo district had fallen from holy warrior hands.