In 1st since Saddam, Iraqi warplanes land at Anbar base

By Suleiman al-Qubaisi

ANBAR, Iraq

For the first time since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Iraqi fighter jets landed at the Ain al-Assad Airbase in Iraq’s western Anbar province, an Iraqi military officer said Wednesday.

According to Col. Walid al-Duleimi, an officer in the army’s Anbar Operations Command, five Iraqi Russian-made Sukhoi warplanes landed at Ain al-Assad -- the first time for Iraqi fighter jets to touch down at the base since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime 13 years ago.

Since then, the base has only hosted Iraqi helicopters and cargo planes, along with U.S. warplanes.

"For the first time in 13 years, five Iraqi Sukhoi fighters landed at the Ain al-Assad airbase in the Al-Baghdadi area, located some 90 kilometers west of [provincial capital] Ramadi," al-Duleimi told Anadolu Agency.

According to the army officer, the airbase was occupied by U.S. forces soon after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime.

"Even after the Daesh terrorist group captured much of Anbar [in 2014], U.S. troops with the international coalition used the airbase -- in coordination with Iraqi forces -- to conduct operations against Daesh," he said.

Al-Duleimi added that the Iraqi warplanes that recently arrived at the airbase would be used in an upcoming campaign to liberate Anbar’s Daesh-held Ramadi Island and Al-Baghdadi areas -- an operation, which he said, "will likely be launched after the Eid al-Adha holiday".

Iraq has suffered a devastating security vacuum since mid-2014, when Daesh captured the northern city of Mosul and overran large swathes of territory in the northern and western parts of the country, including much of Anbar province.

In recent months, the Iraqi army -- backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and local allies on the ground -- has since managed to retake much lost territory, including Anbar’s strategic city of Fallujah.

Nevertheless, the terrorist group remains in firm control of several parts of the country, including Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

Officials in Baghdad, for their part, have vowed to eradicate Daesh’s presence in Iraq by year’s end.