Photo: Reuters

The Iraqi army says it has begun an operation to storm Falluja, a bastion of so-called Islamic State (IS), the BBC reports.

It comes a week after the government launched a concerted effort to retake the city, which has been held by the jihadists since 2014.

An estimated 50,000 civilians are trapped inside, with only a few hundred families escaping so far.

As the army pushed on Falluja, a wave of bombings in and around the capital, Baghdad, killed at least 20 people.