Key Iraqi City Falls to ISIS as Last of Security Forces Flee

By Tim Arango, NY Times, May 17, 2015 BAGHDAD–The last Iraqi security forces fled the provincial capital of Ramadi on Sunday, as the city fell completely to the militants of the Islamic State, who ransacked the provincial military headquarters, seizing a large store of weapons, and carried out executions of people loyal to the government, according to security officials and tribal leaders. The fall of Ramadi to the Islamic State, despite intensified American airstrikes in recent weeks in a bid to save the city, represented the biggest victory so far this year for the extremist group, which has declared a caliphate, or Islamic state, in the vast areas of Syria and Iraq that it controls. The fall of Ramadi also laid bare the failed strategy of the Iraqi government, which had announced last month a new offensive to retake Anbar Province, a vast desert region in the west of which Ramadi is the capital. “The city has fallen,” said Muhannad Haimour, the spokesman for Anbar’s governor. Mr. Haimour said that at least 500 civilians and security personnel had been killed over the last two days in and around Ramadi, either from fighting or executions. Among the dead, he said, was the 3-year-old daughter of a soldier. “Men, women, kids and fighters’ bodies are scattered on the ground,” said Sheikh Rafe al-Fahdawi, a tribal leader from Ramadi, who was in Baghdad on Sunday and whose men had been resisting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. He also said, “All security forces and tribal leaders have either retreated or been killed in battle. It is a big loss.” A soldier who had been stationed at the Anbar Operations Command headquarters said the forces left behind a huge cache of heavy weapons that had recently been sent by Baghdad, including rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns. The weapons had been supplied by both the United States and Russia. “ISIS is gaining more weapons, and the battle will be harder in the future,” said the soldier, who declined to give his name because he feared for his life.