Homes burned, looted in Iraq city of Fallujah

FALLUJAH, Iraq — Dozens of homes were looted and burned as Fallujah was liberated from the Islamic State group, and Iraqi government forces Monday accused the retreating militants. Some provincial police, however, blamed the fires on Shiite militias operating with the federal police.

The allegations of sectarian incidents in Fallujah are on a much smaller scale than those that unfolded in another Sunni-majority city, Tikrit, after government-sanctioned Shiite militias helped retake it from the Islamic State group. The Iraqi government had sought to try to prevent similar abuses in the Fallujah campaign.

Iraqi forces declared Sunday they had “fully liberated” Fallujah from the Sunni-led extremist group that took over the city 40 miles west of Baghdad more than two years ago. The operation, backed by airstrikes from a U.S.-led coalition, began May 22, and involved a number of different Iraqi security forces: elite special operations troops, federal police, Anbar provincial police, and an umbrella group of government-approved mostly Shiite militias.

Special forces Lt. Gen. Abdul Wahab al-Saadi, who led the operation to retake the city, said Islamic State militants had torched hundreds of houses in Fallujah’s north and west as they fled Sunday, just as the fighters did in many other neighborhoods in the last five weeks.

But some commanders said many of the fires burning Monday were lit by Shiite militiamen operating with the federal police.

The overall damage to Fallujah appears to be much lower than in Ramadi and Sinjar. In those areas, entire blocks were left largely uninhabitable by intense Iraqi and coalition airstrikes to clear territory and hundreds of planted bombs.

The U.N. estimates 85,000 people have fled Fallujah in the past month, and many are sheltering in hot, overcrowded camps in the middle of the desert.