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| Iraq families flee ISIS, Sat. 5/16/15 |
"Iraqi security forces attempting to retake control of the western city of Ramadi were routed in heavy fighting Sunday, the worst defeat for Iraq’s central government since Islamic State militants stormed across the country.
In a replay of last year’s military debacle, elite units abandoned their U.S.-provided equipment to Islamic State fighters and fled the area, leaving several hundred soldiers surrounded in the last government-held enclave in the city.
Multiple security sources, none of whom agreed to be identified, speaking from both within the besieged Anbar Provincial Operation Center as well as with the units fleeing the city, described the fight for control of the provincial capital of Iraq’s largest province as essentially over after reinforcements sent on Saturday to retake the city were crushed by Islamic State fighters....
Several hundred policemen and soldiers were surrounded inside the command center, which was repeatedly struck by suicide bombers and heavy artillery fire as militants cut off their last routes of escape....
The units that had been attempting to retake Ramadi, which was attacked late Thursday evening and had fallen mostly into militant hands by Saturday, were in the process of fleeing the city and had abandoned dozens of U.S.-supplied armored vehicles, as well as artillery, heavy machine guns and other military gear as they fled mostly on foot from the fighting.
The elite Golden Brigade, Iraq’s premier special forces unit, which had withdrawn to the “Stadium” neighborhood south of the city on Friday to await reinforcements and prepare a counterattack had also abandoned its positions and was retreating from the area under heavy attack by Islamic State forces....
U.S. officials in Washington declined to confirm the turn of events, insisting, as they have for several days, even as it became clearer that the Islamic State was advancing aggressively in Ramadi, that nothing unexpected was taking place....
On Friday, the White House announced that it was rushing shoulder-fired rockets to Iraq that were especially useful for destroying car bombs before they could reach their targets, and there was no doubt in Iraq of the seriousness of the developments.
One police officer confirmed that at least 30 U.S. supplied armored Humvees, which had been sent as reinforcements on Saturday, had been abandoned in the neighborhood of Malaab alone. Those vehicles were part of three regiments of Iraqi soldiers sent to the city on Saturday to confront the surprise offensive on one of the last government held population centers in Anbar, Iraq’s largest province.
The officer said that at least 500 soldiers and police were fleeing from that area, mostly on foot, with the main highway linking Ramadi to the capital of Baghdad, about 60 miles away, completely controlled by the Islamic State....
The capture of Ramadi, a city whose population is given as between 500,000 and 900,000, is by far the largest Islamic State victory since the militants’ June 10 capture of Mosul, which with 2 million people is Iraq’s second biggest city. It comes after nine months of U.S. bombing in Iraq and offers a counter to American military officials’ arguments as recently as last week that those strikes have put the militants on the defensive.
Ramadi was the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting during the U.S. occupation of Iraq – more than 1,300 American soldiers and Marines dies in Anbar. But unlike Fallujah, which was the subject of two bloody American offensives, Ramadi never fell completely into the hands of the extremists who were the predecessors of the Islamic State.
The city has been besieged since January 2014, but had remained contested until Thursday night’s blitz of car bombs marked the beginning of the Islamic State’s push.
The debacle unfolded despite at least seven air strikes by U.S. and coalition warplanes overnight Saturday to Sunday, with a statement from the U.S. military listing targets in and around Ramadi that had been destroyed by air strikes – including six units of Islamic State fighters and several command and control facilities used by the group – but apparently the strikes were unable to change the outcome of the battle."...
Image: "Displaced Iraqis from Ramadi rest before crossing the Bzebiz bridge after spending the night walking towards Baghdad, as they flee their hometown, 65 km west of Baghdad, Iraq, May 16, 2015. Islamic State militants seized the center of Ramadi in western Iraq and raised their black flag over the government compound, local officials said." Mizban, AP
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