Reuters, Baghdad :
Iraqi forces regained ground from Islamic State militants in western Iraq on Sunday, advancing towards the city of Ramadi one week after it fell to the insurgents.
A police major and a pro-government Sunni tribal fighter in the area said they had retaken the town of Husaiba al-Sharqiya, about 10 km east of Ramadi, with the help of Shi’ite paramilitaries.
Shi’ite militias, Iraqi security forces and pro-government Sunni tribal fighters launched a counter-offensive on Saturday against the insurgents, who have pushed east towards a key military base after overrunning Ramadi.
“Today we regained control over Husaiba and are laying plans to make more advances to push back Daesh fighters further,” said local tribal leader Amir al-Fahdawi, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State, also known in English as ISIS or ISIL.
“The morale of the fighters is high after the arrival of reinforcements and loads of ammunition”.
Planes were bombing Islamic State positions on the opposite bank of the Euphrates river, where the militants were launching mortars and sniper fire to prevent the pro-government forces advancing, Fahdawi and the police major said.
The fall of Ramadi last Sunday was the biggest setback for Iraqi forces in almost a year and has cast doubt on the effectiveness of the U.S.-led strategy for fighting the Sunni militant group.
A U.S.-led coalition is bombing Islamic State positions from the air after the group seized swathes of Iraq and Syria and proclaimed a caliphate last year to rule over all Muslims.
Iraqi government forces and Iran-backed Shi’ite militia advanced against the Sunni militants north of Baghdad in the Tigris river valley earlier this year, recapturing former dictator Saddam Hussein’s home city of Tikrit. But the insurgents responded by going on the offensive west of Baghdad in the valley of Iraq’s other great river, the Euphrates.
Meanwhile, the Islamic State group took full control of a border crossing between Iraq and Syria Sunday, tightening its grip on the heart of its self-proclaimed caliphate.
The move gave IS control of the two main roads between Syria and Iraq’s province of Anbar, as the jihadists pressed their most devastating offensive in months.
The latest success came a week after IS captured the Iraqi city of Ramadi and days after it seized the historic Syrian city of Palmyra, two of the group’s most significant military victories in almost a year.
The jihadists seized Al-Walid border post early Sunday when Iraqi government forces pulled back to a nearby crossing with Jordan. IS had taken the Syrian side of the crossing on Thursday.
“There was no military support for the security forces and there weren’t enough of them to protect the crossing,” Suad Jassem, the head of Anbar’s border commission, said.
“Daesh (IS) now controls both sides of both crossings,” she said, referring to another crossing between Anbar and Syria further north that the jihadists seized last year.
The surge by a group described as the most violent in modern jihad raised further questions about the efficiency of the US-led coalition’s eight-month air campaign.
