Fallujah

Iraqi forces thrust into the city of Fallujah from three ­directions on Monday, marking a new and perilous phase of ­urban combat in their week-old operation to retake the jihadist bastion for the Islamic State group (IS).

The drive to recapture the first city to be lost to jihadist control in 2014 came as fighting also raged in neighboring Syria, leaving huge numbers of civilians in danger of becoming caught in the crossfire.

Forces led by the elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) - Iraq's best-trained and most seasoned fighting unit - pushed into Fallujah before dawn, commanders said.

"Iraqi forces entered Fallujah under air cover from the international coalition, the Iraqi air force and army aviation, and were supported by artillery and tanks," said Lieutenant ­General Abdelwahab al-Saadi, the ­operation's commander.

"CTS forces, the Anbar [provincial] police and the Iraqi army started moving into Fallujah from three directions at around 4 am," he said.

"There is resistance from Daesh," he added, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

The forces have not yet ventured into the city center, but they recaptured some areas in a southern suburb after crossing a bridge and took up positions on the eastern and northern fringes.

The involvement of the elite CTS marks the start of a phase of urban combat in a city first captured by US ­forces in 2004 following some of their ­toughest battles since the ­Vietnam War.

The Iraqi forces' week-old operation had previously focused on retaking rural areas around Fallujah, which lies just 50 kilometers west of Baghdad.

The campaign was initially led by the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force, which is dominated by Shiite militias.

They were still in action on Monday attempting to clear an area northwest of Fallujah called Saqlawiya, officials said.

Only a few hundred families in the Fallujah area have managed to slip out ahead of the assault on the city. An estimated 50,000 civilians are still trapped inside, sparking fears that the jihadists could try to use them as human shields.

The only families who have been able to flee so far lived in outlying areas, with the biggest wave of displaced people reaching camps on Saturday night.

Starving and exhausted ­civilians trickled into ­Amriyat al-Fallujah, a government-­controlled town to the south of the jihadist bastion, after ­walking through the countryside for hours at night, dodging IS surveillance.

A senior police commander said his forces had assisted 800 civilians fleeing areas north of Fallujah on Monday.

Fallujah is one of just two major urban centers in Iraq still held by IS jihadists.