Baghdad gives nod to Shia fighters after defeat in Ramadi

About 500 people have been killed in the fighting for Ramadi and 6 000 to 8 000 have fled

BAGHDAD: Shia paramilitaries were preparing to deploy to Iraq’s western province of Anbar yesterday after Islamic State militants overran the provincial capital Ramadi in the biggest defeat for the Baghdad government since last summer.

The US-led coalition stepped up air raids against the Islamists, conducting 19 strikes in the vicinity of Ramadi over the past 72 hours at the request of the Iraqi security forces, a coalition spokesman said.

A spokesman for the paramilitaries, known as Hashid Shaabi, said they had received orders to mobilise, but details could not be revealed for security reasons.

“Now that the Hashid has received the order to march forward, they will definitely take part,” said Ali al-Sarai, a member of the Hashid Shaabi’s media wing. “They were waiting for this order and now they have it.”

Ramadi is dominated by Sunni Muslims. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi signed off on the deployment of Shia militias to attempt to seize back the area, a move he had resisted for fear of provoking a sectarian backlash.

About 500 people have been killed in the fighting for Ramadi in recent days and between 6 000 and 8 000 have fled, a spokesman for the provincial governor said.

The city’s fall marked a major setback for the forces ranged against Islamic State: the US-led coalition and the Iraqi security forces, which have been propped up by Iranian-backed Shia militias

It was also a harsh return to reality for Washington, which at the weekend had mounted a successful special forces raid in Syria in which it said it killed an Islamic State leader in charge of the group’s black market oil and gas sales, and captured his wife.

The Iraqi government and Shia paramilitaries recaptured the city of Tikrit from Islamic State last month.

Islamic State said in Ramadi it had seized tanks and killed “dozens of apostates”, its description for members of the Iraqi security forces.

Earlier, security sources said government forces evacuated a military base after it came under attack by the insurgents, who had already taken one of the last districts still holding out.

It was the biggest victory for Islamic State in Iraq since security forces and Shia paramilitary groups began pushing the militants back last year, aided by air strikes from a US-led coalition.