(The Economist) – On June 18th Iraq’s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, declared that his forces had regained control of Fallujah, a stronghold seized by Islamic State (IS) two and a half years ago that lies just 60km (40 miles) from the capital, Baghdad. Yet the next day the thud of mortars and rockets could still be heard inside the supposedly liberated city, and armoured convoys were still rumbling into the fray. “Daesh is still here,” said Qusay Hamid, an Iraqi special-forces major, using the Arabic acronym for IS as he waited on a sun-baked Fallujah street to move his men into battle near a mosque.
