A volunteer with Popular Mobilization smokes a cigarette during a military operation launched by Iraqi Security forces and allied Popular Mobilization forces to regain control of Islamic State group held town of Besher outside the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, April 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil)
A volunteer with Popular Mobilization smokes a cigarette during a military operation launched by Iraqi Security forces and allied Popular Mobilization forces to regain control of Islamic State group held town of Besher outside the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, April 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil) Credit: ap — Anmar Khalil

Baghdad — Iraqi security forces pushed Islamic State fighters from the western city of Hit on Monday, raising the Iraqi flag over the local municipal building and dealing another blow to the group’s weakening self-proclaimed caliphate, authorities here said.

Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service and Joint Operations Command confirmed that the government was in control of the center of the city, which is located on the Euphrates River in Anbar province, about 100 miles west of Baghdad. But fighting reportedly still flared in at least some neighborhoods.

Pro-government forces had been fighting since March to retake Hit, which was overrun by Islamic State militants in October 2014.

Assadi said more than 11,000 people were evacuated from Hit but that there were still civilians in the city.

— Washington Post