Iraq declares war against Islamic State has ended

Baghdad, December 10: Iraq has announced that its war against Islamic State is over. The Iraqi announcement comes two days after the Russian military declared it had accomplished its mission of defeating IS in neighbouring Syria.

The Iraqi armed forces issued a statement saying Iraq had been totally liberated from IS. Some IS fighters are reported to have dispersed into the Syrian countryside, while others are believed to have escaped across the Turkish border.

The US state department welcomed the end of the "vile occupation" of IS in Iraq and said the fight against the group would continue.

US state department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement that Iraqis who had lived under the jihadists' "brutal control" were now free.

"The United States joins the government of Iraq in stressing that Iraq's liberation does not mean the fight against terrorism, and even against Isis [IS], in Iraq is over," she added.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May congratulated Mr Abadi on a "historic moment" but warned that IS still posed a threat, including from across the border in Syria.

The militant group had seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, when it proclaimed a caliphate and imposed its rule over some 10 million people. But it suffered a series of defeats over the past two years, losing Iraq's second city of Mosul this July and its de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria last month.