BAGHDAD // ISIL has seized another town in Iraq’s western Anbar province, less than a week after capturing the provincial capital, Ramadi, a tribal leader said Friday.
Sheikh Rafie Al Fahdawi said the small town of Husseiba fell overnight when police and tribal fighters withdrew after running out of ammunition.
“We have not received any assistance form the government. Our men fought to the last bullet and several of them were killed,” he said.
Husseiba is about seven kilometres east of Ramadi, where ISIL militants routed Iraqi forces last weekend in their most significant advance in nearly a year.
Mr Al Fahdawi said that with the fall of Husseiba, the militants have come closer to the strategic Habbaniyah military base, which is still held by government forces.
“The situation is very critical. The militants are about 5km from Habbaniyah base, which is now in great danger,” he said.
A day earlier, ISIL militants captured the Iraqi side of a key border crossing with Syria after Iraqi government forces pulled out. The fall of the Al Waleed crossing, also in Anbar, will help the militants to shuttle weaponry and reinforcements more easily across the Iraqi-Syrian border.
The Iraqi government plans to launch a counteroffensive in Anbar involving Iranian-backed Shiite militias, which have played a key role in rolling back the IS group elsewhere in the country. The presence of the militias could however fuel sectarian tensions in the Sunni province, where anger at the Shiite-led government runs deep.
Meanwhile, in north-west Syria, Al Nusra Front overran a hospital where at least 150 Assad regime forces and dozens of civilians were trapped for nearly a month, a monitor said.
The group, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, and other factions “have taken complete control of Jisr Al Shughur hospital,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The monitoring group’s head said “dozens” had managed to flee but others were killed, wounded or taken hostage, without giving exact figures.
Rebel groups have made a series of major gains in Idlib province, including its capital, that they seized on March 28.
On Tuesday, rebels took control of Al Mastumah, the regime’s largest military base in the province.
* Agencies
