BAGHDAD – Iraqi military forces on Monday retook a strategic government complex in the city of Ramadi from Islamic State militants who have occupied the city since May, military officials said – a symbolic victory that could help lift the morale of Iraq’s beleaguered security forces as they battle to retake the rest of the city.

In a televised statement, military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool initially announced that Ramadi had been “grabbed from the hateful claws” of the Islamic State group and “fully liberated.”

But Gen. Ismail al-Mahlawi, head of military operations in Anbar, quickly clarified that government forces had only retaken a strategic government complex and that parts of the city remained under IS control. IS fighters have retreated from about 70 percent of city, but still control the rest; government forces still don’t fully control many of the districts from which the IS fighters have retreated.

“The troops only entered the government complex,” al-Mahlawi told The Associated Press. “We can’t say that Ramadi is fully liberated. There are still neighborhoods under their control and there are still resistance pockets.”

Iraqi state TV showed troops, some waving Iraqi flags and others brandishing machine guns, chanting and dancing inside what it described as the government complex. Some troops were seen slaughtering sheep in celebration near heavily damaged buildings.