Islamic State beleaguers key town in counterattack

Action is apparent response to Iraq’s plan to retake Mosul.

Islamic State militants Sunday seized parts of a strategic western town in Iraq in an apparent response to an ongoing government campaign to recapture their main Iraqi stronghold, the northern city of Mosul.

Islamic State captured northern districts of the town of Rutbah, and local government offices in its center, military officials said.

The attack on Rutbah, near a strategic j unction where the highway west from Baghdad forks toward the Syrian and Jordanian borders, is typical of the group’s tactic of launching a major assault elsewhere when it comes under military pressure.

It came as Kurdish troops advancing toward Mosul from the east and northeast claimed further gains against the extremist Sunni organization.

Islamic State attacked Rutbah, which security forces had captured from them in May, with car bombs and suicide bombers, the officials said, killing at least 12 government fighters.

The Baghdad government sent reinforcements to back up the fighting against Islamic State, another official said earlier.

Islamic State’s media outlet, the Amaq News Agency, claimed that group seized half of Rutbah.

Two days earlier, Islamic State fighters carried out another diversionary attack, in the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk.

G ove rn m e n t fo r c e s , backed by Kurdish forces and a U.S.-led air alliance, began their campaign to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul, the country’s second-biggest city, last Monday.