The boys and men are taken to detention centers where they are interrogated about any ties to the Islamic State. Washington has expressed fear that the participation of Shiite forces in assaulting a Sunni city like Falluja would heighten sectarian tensions. Reporting little resistance from Islamic State fighters, counterterrorism forces raised the Iraqi flag over the main government building in central Falluja, about 40 miles west of Baghdad, and they moved on to besiege the city’s main hospital. “ISIS has lost its power to defend Falluja,” Col. Jamal Lateef, a police commander in Anbar Province, said in an interview. It has been a longstanding, and controversial, practice of the Iraqi authorities to separate men and boys from women, children and the elderly, among those fleeing Islamic State areas.

Source: New York Times June 17, 2016 13:05 UTC