Islamic State fighters capture three villages
Thousands flee as assault pushes into city
IRBIL, Iraq – Two weeks after a critical victory at Tikrit, where a combination of U.S. airstrikes, government troops and Shiite Muslim militias overwhelmed an Islamic State force that had held the city for nearly a year, the Iraqi government faced a new challenge Wednesday, a sign of how much remains to be done to defeat the militants.
In a surprise assault, Islamic State group fighters captured three villages outside Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province 100 miles south of Tikrit, and pushed to within 500 yards of a key government center in the northeastern section of the city, one of the few population centers in Anbar still under government control.
Government forces were responding with heavy bombardment from military aircraft, but the outcome of the battle was uncertain as night fell. Thousands of residents and troops were reported fleeing the city.
“The soldiers, the militias, the tribes, everyone with a gun who had said they would protect us from Daash has fled the city,” said one resident reached by phone, who asked not to be identified for security reasons. Daash is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.
Photos from the city showed massive traffic tie-ups as hundreds of cars jammed roads.
The timing of the Islamic State’s offensive seemed intended to remind the government in Baghdad that the militants remain a potent force and ready to repel the government’s announced next move to liberate Anbar, a vast Sunni Muslim-dominated province that the Islamic State had controlled even before it stormed across northern and central Iraq last summer.
Residents and military commanders said the fighting had been heavy for the villages that fell to the Islamists – Sjariyah, Albu-Ghanim and Soufiya – and the Defense Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Tahseen Ibrahim, acknowledged government troops’ defeat, telling the Associated Press that the militants had “gained a foothold in some areas.”
He said reinforcements had been dispatched to the province and U.S.-led coalition airstrikes were supporting the Iraqi forces, although there was no immediate confirmation from the U.S. Central Command.
An Iraqi official in Ramadi, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, said militants had pushed to within 500 yards of the provincial command center but were then killed by U.S. airstrikes, part of what the official described as a trap the Iraqis and Americans had set for the Islamic State fighters.
Residents offered a less optimistic assessment of the fighting.
One, Omar al Dulaimi, told McClatchy by phone that the Islamic State attack had surprised residents and government-aligned tribal fighters. Dulaimi said government forces withdrew from their forward positions in Ramadi and Karmah, a strategic town outside the nearby city of Fallujah, leaving many pro-government Sunni tribesmen trapped. The tribesmen were running low on ammunition, he said.
The government “must break this siege or there will be hundreds of innocent people massacred by Daash,” Dulami said.