Thousands leave as militants advance
Iraqi city deserted as Islamic State forces close in.
More than 2,000 families flee the Iraqi city of Ramadi as the Islamic State group closes in.
BAGHDAD — More than 2,000 families have fled the Iraqi city of Ramadi with little more than the clothe s on their backs, officials said Thursday, as the Islamic State group closed in on the capital of western Anbar province, cl ashing with Iraqi troops and turning it into a ghost town.
The extremist group, which has controlled the nearby city of Fallujah for more than a year, captured three village s on Ramadi’s eastern outskirts on Wednesday.
The advance is widely seen as a counteroffensive after the Islamic State group lost the city of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, earlier this month.
Hundreds of U.S. troops are training Iraqi forces at a militar y base west of Ramadi, but a U.S. military official said the fighting had no impac t on the soldier s there, and that there were no plans to withdraw them.
The fleeing Ramadi residents were settling in the southern and western suburbs of Baghdad.
U.S.-led coalition airstrikes targeted the Islamic State in Sjariyah, Albu-Ghanim and Soufiya, three villages the extremists captured Wednesday, the offici al s added.
Anbar’s deputy governor, Faleh al-Issawi, described the situation in Ramadi as “catastrophic” and urged the central government to send in reinforcements.