BAGHDAD/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Shi’ite Muslim militiamen and Iraqi army forces launched a counter-offensive against Islamic State insurgents near Ramadi yesterday, a militia spokesman said, aiming to reverse potentially devastating gains by the jihadi militants.
The fall of Ramadi, the Anbar provincial capital, to Islamic State on May 17 could be a shattering blow to Baghdad’s weak central government. The Sunni Muslim jihadis now control most of Anbar and could threaten the western approaches to Baghdad, or even surge south into Iraq’s Shi’ite heartland.
Anbar provincial council member Azzal Obaid said hundreds of Shi’ite fighters, who had assembled last week at the Habbaniya air base, moved into Khalidiya on Saturday and were nearing Siddiqiya and Madiq, towns in contested territory near Ramadi.
Two police officers later told Reuters the pro-government forces, which they said included locally allied Sunni tribesmen, had advanced past those towns to within one kilometre of Husaiba al-Sharqiya, an Islamic State-run town 7 kilometres (4 miles) east of the Ramadi city limits.
One officer said the Shi’ite-led forces exchanged fire with Islamic State but there was no immediate word on casualties.
Jaffar Husseini, spokesman for Shi’ite paramilitary group Kataib Hezbollah, said more than 2,000 reinforcements had joined the pro-government advance and they had managed to secure Khalidiya and the road linking it to Habbaniya.
