ISIS waging deadliest attack on Ramadi

Iraq’s Anbar province police chief said the Islamic State (ISIS) has launched an attack on the four corners of the city of Ramadi in the heaviest strike by the organisation since the beginning of the year.

Major General Mohammed Kazem Fahdawi told the Anadolu Agency that “elements of ISIS launched a major offensive since dawn on the four corners of the city of Ramadi, resulting in violent clashes which are ongoing.”

Fahdawi explained that “the security forces and tribal fighters are working together with counter-terrorism groups and the rapid response forces in coordination with the International Airline Alliance and the Iraqi alliance which are all locked into fierce clashes with elements of the organisation, which is still trying to edge further into the city of Ramadi.”

He pointed out that “this attack is the deadliest of its kind by the organisation on the city of Ramadi since the start of the year.”

Ahmed Al-Sulaimani, the member of parliament for the province of Anbar, said armed ISIS fighters abducting 11 of his relatives, including his brother, in the western city of Al-Qaim.

In a statement to the Anadolu Agency, the MP said that “elements of the organisation raided the homes of his relatives in the city of Al-Karabilah [350 kilometres west of Ramadi] and abducted 11 of them, including his brother and took them to an unknown location.”

Al-Sulaimani added: “Elements of the organisation carry extremist ideology which aims to kill all forms and colors of life, and what my family have been subjected to is no different to what the people of Anbar and Iraq are suffering from in terms of kidnappings and murders at the hands of those criminal gangs.”

Since the start of the year, Iraqi forces have been engaged in armed battles with ISIS throughout most of the Anbar province. The tensions increased after ISIS gained control of the western districts of the province in addition to areas in the eastern regions and parts of the city of Ramadi.

An US-led international coalition has been launching airstrikes against ISIS positions which controls large areas in neighbouring Syria.

In June the group announced the establishment of what it called the “Caliphate State”.