Baghdad: Iraqi forces, backed by the U.S.-led coalition, on Friday captured the border town of Rawa, the last remaining town under Islamic State control.
Recapturing it means that IS has largely been neutralized in Iraq.
However, pockets of resistance still exist and the group does control some territory in the deserts of western Iraq, reports CNN.
Government troops and paramilitary units “liberated the whole of Rawa and raised the Iraqi flag on all of its official buildings,” General Abdelamir Yarallah of Iraq’s Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.
Rawa is located northwest of Baghdad in the Euphrates valley, near the border town of Qaim that Iraqi forces retook from IS earlier this month.
In 2014, ISIS controlled more than 34,000 square miles in Syria and Iraq.
By the end of 2016, ISIS territory had shrunk to about 23,320 square miles.(ANI)
Iraqi forces recapture last IS-held town
