What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Islamic State fighters hid behind 50,000 civilian hostages as Iraqi forces blitzed Fallujah.

The jihadis used the human shield as efforts to retake the ­terrorist stronghold, which kicked off under a US-led coalition on May 22, intensified.

Some 70 fanatics have been killed in airstrikes in the past five days in Iraq and Syria, including Maher al-Bilawi, IS’s leader in Fallujah.

Colonel Steve Warren, spokesman for the US-led coalition , said the terrorists “are holding the civilian population captive so that they can hide behind them”. In a weekly update of operations, he added: “We’ve killed more than 70 enemy fighters, including Al-Bilawi.”

(Image: Getty)

Fallujah, along with Mosul, is one of IS’s final bastions in Iraq.

The Iraqi defence ministry claims to have isolated the city, which fell to terrorist control in January 2014.

Brigadier Rasool Yahya said: “We are advancing. The presence of civilians in the city could delay us. The enemy left the outskirts and stationed itself inside Fallujah.”

Read more:

According to the UN, up to 800 people have escaped the fighting over the past week – but mostly from the outskirts of the city where IS has been largely pushed out. Of the civilians fleeing, 50,000 were captured and are being held by the remaining 1,700 IS fighters.

Concern had been growing among humanitarian groups for months that the population was being deliberately starved under IS.

But some of Fallujah’s mainly Sunni residents claim to prefer the city under IS control compared with supposed marginalisation under the Shia-dominated government.