Iraqi army, backed by Popular Mobilization forces, managed to break an 18-month siege of Haditha city in Anbar province.

Iraqi army, backed by Popular Mobilization forces, managed to break an 18-month siege of Haditha city in Anbar province.

Iraq's joint operations command coordinating the fight against ISIL Takfiri insurgents said in a statement on Monday that the Iraqi allied forces retook several villages from the terrorists along the Euphrates River.

The Iraqi army's 7th division had been moving down the river from al-Baghdadi and eventually joined up with forces from the counter-terrorism service moving up from the town of Hit.

"The road is therefore open between Hit and Haditha, via al-Baghdadi, after an 18-month siege by the terrorists of Daesh," the statement said, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL.

"The siege of Haditha and al-Baghdadi was broken after liberating the strategic highway between Baghdadi and Hit," Major General Ali Ibrahim Daboun, the army commander responsible for the area, told AFP.

Faleh al-Namrawi, a tribal official from Haditha told The New Arab that lifting the ISIL siege on the area represents a severe blow to the militant group.

"Opening the road between Hit and Haditha will enable Iraqi forces to move supplies and equipment to western Anbar," Namrawi said.

"Government and tribal forces will now continue implementing their operational plan to liberate areas in western Anbar in order to retake the entire province".

Haditha, 210 kilometers northwest of the capital Baghdad, is the third city in the vast province of Anbar and lies near the country's second largest dam.

It has come under repeated attack since ISIL militants launched their massive offensive in Iraq in June 2014, but the dominant tribes there were able to hold them off.

For months, the city's main lifeline was the nearby military base of al-Asad, which was only accessible by air.