Iraqi troops retake key town from ISIS in Falluja offensive

Iraqi security forces and supporting militias have retaken the key town of Karma from ISIS, the government’s first significant victory in its push to reclaim Falluja, a spokesman for Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said Thursday.

The recapture of Karma, about 16 kilometers (10 miles) northeast of Falluja, brings most of the territory east of Falluja under government control.

Iraqi government forces drive their armored vehicle through a street in western Falluja, Iraq, on Monday, June 27, after retaking the city from ISIS.

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Related gallery The battle for Falluja

Iraqi government troops, backed by Shiite militias known as the Popular Mobilization Units and an air campaign by the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition, launched an offensive Monday to retake Falluja, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad.

It remains, along with Mosul, one of the last two Iraqi cities under the Sunni terror group’s control.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi posted a statement on Facebook congratulating the people of Iraq on the “liberation of al-Karma” and ordered security forces to protect civilians there.

“We are all united to liberate Falluja and save its people from the terror of ISIS,” he later tweeted.

Some fighting is ongoing to clear the western parts of Karma of small pockets of ISIS fighters.

Iraqi security forces have spent the better part of a year trying to retake Karma from the terror group, suffering heavy losses.

U.N. fears for 10,000 families trapped in ISIS-held Falluja as Iraq army advances

U.N.: Civilians at extreme risk

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Related video Iraqi military battles ISIS for control of Falluja

The United Nations said it fears an estimated 50,000 civilians trapped in Falluja ahead of the government advance are at extreme risk.

“We are receiving distressing reports of civilians trapped inside Falluja who are desperate to escape to safety, but can’t,” Lise Grande, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, warned in a statement Wednesday.

Iraq’s government has airdropped leaflets and broadcast advisories to residents to flee through “safe corridors” established by the military to camps outside the city, or wave white flags over their homes if they are trapped.

Iraqi forces celebrate the recapture of the town of Karma from ISIS.

But activists said ISIS is preventing residents from leaving, and U.N. officials have said some have died trying to escape.

About 800 people had been able to flee to safety since Sunday, with most hailing from outlying areas, the U.N. statement said.

Some walked for hours in dangerous conditions to reach camps set up in Amiriyat al-Falluja, a city about 30 kilometers (19 miles) to the south.

“The U.N. and its partners have humanitarian teams and supplies on the ground,” Grande said. “We’ve already begun providing people with food, water and shelter as they arrive and we’ll be there as more people arrive.”

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Related video Iraqi military battles ISIS for control of Falluja

Those who made it out described dire humanitarian conditions in Falluja, which has had supply routes cut off since government forces retook nearby Ramadi in December.

“Food supplies are limited and tightly controlled. Medicines are exhausted and many families have no choice but to rely on dirty and unsafe water sources,” Grande said.

ISIS lets Raqqa residents flee city as offensive waged to north

Sectarian dimension

Falluja fell in January 2014, becoming the first Iraqi city that ISIS captured.

The traditionally Sunni-dominated city now finds itself advanced on by troops representing the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government, supported by Shiite militias.

On Wednesday, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric, urged the forces advancing on Falluja to show restraint and observe Islamic ethics of war.

A statement from a Sistani representative said the cleric urged troops to follow the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed and not to kill an old man or a young boy or a woman, and not even to cut a tree, unless they had to.

U.S. Marines in northern Kuwait gear up after receiving orders to cross the Iraqi border on March 20, 2003. It has been more than 10 years since the American-led invasion of Iraq that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein. Look back at 100 moments from the war and the legacy it left behind.

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President George W. Bush meets with his war council in the Situation Room of the White House on March 21, 2003. Clockwise from foreground: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director George Tenet, Chief of Staff Andy Card, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers were present.

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Iraqi men check a list near the remains of bodies excavated from a mass grave on the outskirts of Al Musayyib on May 31, 2003. Locals said they uncovered the remains of hundreds of Shiite Muslims allegedly executed by Saddam Hussein's regime after their uprising following the 1991 Gulf War.

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Army Cpl. Curtis Laymon of the 101st Airborne Rakkasan regiment is reflected in a pool of oil from the Iraqi-Turkey pipeline in Iraq's Ninewa province on October 29, 2003. The pipeline was blown apart by saboteurs two weeks earlier.

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A construction worker removes debris from a destroyed building in Baghdad on December 11, 2003.

Saddam Hussein's picture is taken December 14, 2003, after his capture a day earlier. U.S. troops found Hussein hiding near his hometown of Tikrit.

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Laborers work on a hotel in Baghdad on January 15, 2004.

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A boy stands at the scene of a car bombing in front of the Shaheen Hotel in Baghdad on January 28, 2004.

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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama flies over Baghdad with Gen. David Petraeus during a tour on July 21, 2008.

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Iraqi army special forces patrol Baghdad's al-Fadel district on March 30, 2009. U.S.-backed Iraqi forces clashed with anti-al-Qaeda militants known as the Awakening Council, or Sahwa, after fighting erupted following the arrest of Adel Mashhadani, a Sahwa leader.

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An Iraqi woman votes in parliamentary elections in Kirkuk on March 7, 2010.

U.S. soldiers salute during a handover ceremony of the entry points of Baghdad's Green Zone, now referred to as the International Zone, to Iraqi control inside the heavily fortified compound in Baghdad on June 1, 2010.

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Iraqis gather at a women's art exhibition in a posh Baghdad neighborhood on December 14, 2011.

Gen. Lloyd Austin retires the United States Forces-Iraq flag during a casing ceremony at the former Sather Air Base in Baghdad on December 15, 2011.

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A U.S. soldier prepares to fly out of the Sather Air Base in Baghdad on December 15, 2011. The last U.S. forces left Iraq and entered Kuwait on December 18, nearly nine years after launching a divisive war to oust Saddam Hussein.

100 moments from the Iraq War

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Falluja, which once had a population of 300,000, was the scene of two major battles during the Iraq War, witnessing some of the fiercest fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents.

The new offensive on the city comes as an alliance of U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab forces pushes to retake areas to the north of the de facto ISIS capital of Raqqa in neighboring Syria.

ISIS or the Kurds? Some Arabs wonder who is worse

CNN’s Hamdi Alkhshali, Mustafa Al-Arab and Schams Elwazer contributed to this report.