BAGHDAD: A senior military commander says the advance of government forces in the Daesh-held city of Ramadi is being hampered by suicide bombers, snipers and booby traps.

Gen. Ismail Al-Mahlawi, the head of Iraqi military operations in Anbar, said on Thursday that the militants attacked with suicide car bombers, but they were detonated before reaching their targets.

Al-Mahlawi added that his forces “need time” to dislodge the militants from the capital of Anbar province in the face of snipers and mined buildings. He said around 50 families who had been trapped inside Ramadi had managed to reach safe areas under government control.

Fighting raged around the former government headquarters in Ramadi, a key position whose recapture by federal forces would mark another key step toward reclaiming the city they lost to the Daesh group in May.

“There’s stiff resistance, there’s been fierce fighting over the last 24 hours in the southern part of Ramadi city,” said the US-led coalition’s spokesman, Col. Steve Warren.

“They’ve established a strong defense using improvised explosive devices as mine fields, booby traps, rigging entire houses to explode,” he said.

Daesh had positioned around 100 fighters along the main approach to the government complex, he added.

“Because of the restrictive nature of the terrain, it’s difficult to mass combat power. It’s easy for a small number of people to hold a large number of people off,” he said. One government fighter was killed and seven others wounded in the latest hours of fighting in Hoz, the Iraqi soldier said.