Islamic State militants attacked the capital of Iraq’s vast Anbar province on multiple fronts yesterday, seizing two areas on the city outskirts in a setback for a government campaign to retake the desert terrain.

The jihadists deployed vehicle and suicide bombs to tear through Iraqi government lines north of the city of Ramadi overnight before attacking on foot, said security officials and a hospital source.

The head of Anbar’s provincial council, Sabah Karhout, called on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to send urgent military reinforcements and supplies to fighters, saying they were running low on ammunition.

Al-Abadi visited Anbar on Tuesday and declared the start of the operation to liberate the Sunni Muslim heartland, seeking to build on a victory over the extremist Islamic State last week in the city of Tikrit.

Head of Anbar’s provincial council calls on PM to send urgent military reinforcements and supplies

But a police source in Ramadi said early yesterday the insurgents had taken half of the Albu Faraj area, and provincial council member Athal al-Fahdawi later said it had been overrun completely. Hundreds of families were fleeing Albu Faraj, just north of Ramadi and a car bomb blew up the bridge linking the two places across the Euphrates river, a police source said.

An army officer and the police source blamed members of the Albu Faraj tribe who live in that area for letting the militants infiltrate their area. The insurgents also took over the adjacent Albu Aitha area, according to Fahdawi and local tribal leader Sheikh Ghassan al-Ithawi.

Large parts of Anbar had slipped from the government’s grasp even before Islamic State overran the northern city of Mosul last June and surged through Sunni areas of Iraq.

The Islamic State controls large swathes of both Syria and Iraq, last year declaring a caliphate across the territory.

Security forces and Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries have since regained some ground in Iraq, although core Sunni territories remain under Islamic State control including Anbar and the northern province of Nineveh.

In Anbar, which shares a long border with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, pockets of territory have remained under government control and Ramadi itself has been contested.

Shi’ite militia have played a leading role in reversing the insurgents’ advances elsewhere, but officials from predominantly Sunni Anbar have expressed reservations about a role for the paramilitary forces on the battlefield. In the capital Baghdad, 13 people were killed in three separate explosions, medical and security sources said.

Meanwhile the Islamic State has bolstered its forces north of Syria’s second city Aleppo, where it is attacking rivals as part of a broader push beyond its eastern strongholds, a rebel leader and a monitoring group said.

The radical jihadist group has in recent weeks conducted a series of attacks in western areas of Syria including state-held territory and has also staged a major advance into Damascus, where it is battling for control of the Yarmouk refugee camp.

Earlier this week, the group targeted rival rebel factions north of Aleppo with two car bombs, killing at least 31 people.

A rebel commander with fighters in that area said Islamic State had called in reinforcements, adding, “They are sending messages to terrorise the people, spreading rumours among the people that they are coming back.”

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.