Iraqi commander: 'Fallujah fight is over'

The brutal, month-long struggle for the Iraqi city of Fallujah is over, and Islamic State militants have been driven from the once booming, now beleaguered "city of mosques," Iraqi military leaders said Sunday.

Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi told Iraqi state TV that government troops had swept into the northwestern neighborhood of al-Julan, the last area of Fallujah to remain under militant control. The battle for Fallujah has featured sometimes fierce door-to-door battles as the military worked to keep civilian casualties to a minimum.

"We convey the good news to the Iraqi people that the battle of Fallujah is over," al-Saadi said, adding that more than 1,800 militants died in the fighting and the rest had fled the city.

The Iraqi military was supported by coalition airstrikes and local militias. Iraqi Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi stressed the value of the airstrikes and urged continued support in the fight against the Islamic State, also known as Daesh.

"About 90% #Fallujah is safe & habitable b/c we caught Daesh off guard, preventing them from destroying city as they did w/ Ramadi & Sinjar," al-Obeidi tweeted.

Islamic State suffers setbacks in Iraq, Syria

Iraqi military starts to retake Fallujah

Fallujah, a predominately Sunni city about 40 miles west of Baghdad in Anbar Province, is known for the scores of mosques that dot its neighborhoods. The city has been under the control of the Islamic State since 2014, when it became one of the first Iraqi cities to fall to the militants.

The government offensive in Fallujah followed a successful operation in December to wrest Ramadi, another Sunni city in western Iraq, from militant control. But Ramadi was nearly destroyed in the fighting, and the toll for Fallujah has also been high — almost 100,000 additional people were driven from their homes and forced to scramble for water, food and shelter.

The Norwegian Refugee Council, which monitors and advocates for refugees around the world, cautioned that neighborhoods must be checked for mines and other dangers before Fallujah's refugees can return home. Conditions in refugee camps remain dire, the council said, but basic services cannot yet be provided to neighborhoods.

"We just do not know which areas are safe and which aren't," the council said in a statement. "We cannot expose these people who have suffered too much already to more harm."

Fallujah Mayor Esa al-Esawi told Reuters that displaced families could return to the city within two months, if the government and international agencies provide aid to the effort. Reconstruction will involve more than infrastructure, he said.

"Daesh worked to brainwash people," he said. "We need serious programs by the international community to help people get rid of Daesh's deviant ideologies and restore their normal life."

More than 3 million Iraqis have been displaced since 2014, when the Islamic State mounted its brutal campaign to carve an extremist caliphate out of a wide swath of Iraq and Syria. The militants have slowly been losing ground in recent months, but the war and humanitarian crisis are far from over.