Fighters
from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group have overrun one of
the last remaining districts held by government forces in the Iraqi
city of Ramadi, security officials have said.
Iraqi
special forces soldiers were reported to be fleeing the city on Sunday
as the armed group succeeded in breaching their last holdout.
The
armed group had earlier made significant gains in its battle to control
Ramadi, besieging the army base and killing 15 soldiers in multiple
suicide car bomb attacks.
Al
Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Baghdad, said government
officials had requested reinforcements from Shia factions in response to
the ISIL advance, a move that could provoke opposition from the
government’s Sunni tribal allies.
“There are many influential tribes in Anbar who have warned against this decision for some time now,” Khodr said.
The
involvement of Shia militias has been condemned by leading tribal
figure, Sheikh Ali al-Hatim, who said it would be considered an “Iranian
occupation”.
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