After days of ISIS fighters advancing east out of Ramadi, an alliance of Iraqi forces opposed to the terror group have launched a counterattack — hoping to push them away from a key Iraqi military base and the country’s capital. CNN has more:
The Iraqis repelled an ISIS attack on the town of Khalidiya and then launched their own offensive to the west Saturday, toward the town of Husayba, which ISIS captured just a day earlier, said Faleh al-Eissawi, deputy governor of Anbar province.
The pushback by Sunni tribal fighters, Iraqi security forces and a Shiite militia could comprise the first significant counterattack in the area since ISIS took control of Ramadi, capital of the predominantly Sunni Anbar province, earlier this month.
The fighting in the Ramadi area has prompted thousands of civilians to flee in recent weeks, many of them to Baghdad, 65 miles (105 kilometers) to the east. ISIS, the extremist Islamist group that has captured portions of Iraq and Syria for what it calls its Islamic caliphate, has brutalized not only its military opponents but also civilians accused of favoring the government or who don’t subscribe to ISIS’ brand of Islam.
In the Ramadi area, witnesses said ISIS militants summarily executed people in the street whom they accused of working with the government.
