Islamic State poured more fighters into Ramadi yesterday as security forces and Shi’ite paramilitaries prepared to retake the Iraqi city that fell to the Islamists a week ago in a major setback for the government.
In Palmyra, the Syrian air force struck at buildings captured by the Sunni militant group, whose arrival has raised fears that the city’s famed Roman ruins will be destroyed.
The air force levelled Islamic State “hideouts” and killed a large number of its members around Palmyra’s military air base, Syrian TV said.
Islamic State has killed at least 217 people execution-style, including children, since it moved into the Palmyra area 10 days ago, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Another 300 soldiers were killed before the Syrian city was captured.
The insurgents reinforced Ramadi yesterday, deploying fighters in preparation for battle against security forces and paramilitary groups advancing on the provincial capital, which lies 110 kilometres northwest of the capital, Baghdad.
Islamic militants are reinforcing Ramadi with new troops
Iraqi forces have regained ground east of Ramadi since launching a counter-offensive on Saturday, a week after it was overrun, and yesterday retook a rural area south of the city.
Police sources said Iraqi forces supported by Iran-backed Shi’ite militia and locally recruited Sunni tribal fighters had retaken parts of al-Tash, 20 km south of Ramadi.
Pro-government Sunni tribal fighters, with the help of the army, laid land mines to reinforce their defensive lines around Baghdadi, northwest of Ramadi which controls access to a major Iraqi air base. Islamic State attacked Baghdadi with seven suicide car bombs on Sunday. In Ramadi, residents said trucks carrying Islamic State fighters arrived on Sunday evening. Local man Abu Saed heard a commotion in the city’s southeastern Officers neighbourhood. “I saw two trucks pull up outside with dozens of fighters carrying arms running quickly into nearby buildings and taking cover.”
Another resident said at least 40 fighters had jumped out of three trucks that arrived in al-Tamim district on Sunday evening.
“They were carrying weapons and wearing mostly khaki dress with ammunition belts wrapped around their chests,” said Abu Mutaz. “They were talking in an Arabic dialect, they were not Iraqis.”
The seizures of Ramadi and Palmyra were Islamic State’s biggest successes since a US-led coalition launched an air war against it last year. Washington is examining its strategy of bombing from the air while leaving fighting on the ground to local forces.
In a sharp criticism of Washington’s ally, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter accused the Iraqi army of abandoning Ramadi to a much smaller enemy force. Meanwhile in a move that could mark an expansion of US involvement in the conflict, Turkey said it and the US had agreed in principle to give air support to some forces from Syria’s mainstream opposition.
In Syria, Hizbollah fighters captured two hilltops from al-Qaeda’s Syria wing in areas close to the Lebanese border and killed dozens, Hizbollah-run al-Manar TV reported yesterday. Iranian-backed Hizbollah has backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war.