BAGHDAD — Iraq said Saturday that its war on the Islamic State group is over after more than three years of combat operations drove the extremists from all of the territory they once held.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced Iraqi forces were in full control of the country’s border with Syria during remarks at a conference in Baghdad, and his spokesman said the development marked the end of the military fight against IS.
A senior military commander confirmed that combat operations had been completed.
“All Iraqi lands are liberated from terrorist Daesh gangs and our forces completely control the international Iraqi-Syrian border,” Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Rasheed Yar Allah said in a statement released shortly after al-Abadi’s remarks. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for IS.
The U.S.-led coalition congratulated Iraq on the “significant victory” Saturday, according to an official statement posted to Twitter. “We stand by the Iraqi people as they set the conditions for a secure and prosperous future,” it read.
IS fighters overran nearly a third of Iraqi territory, including Mosul, the country’s second largest city, in the summer of 2014.