BBC Online :
Sunni militants have seized another town in Iraq’s western Anbar province – the fourth in two days.
Fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) captured Rutba, 90 miles (150km) east of Jordan’s border, officials said.
They earlier seized a border crossing to Syria and two towns in western Iraq as they advance towards Baghdad.
The insurgents intend to capture the whole of the predominantly Sunni Anbar province, a spokesman told the BBC.
Rutba is strategically placed on the main road between Baghdad and Jordan.
It is the fourth town in what is Iraq’s largest province to fall in two days to the Sunni rebel alliance, which Isis spearheads.
On Saturday the militants said they had taken the towns of Rawa and Anah, along the Euphrates river.
And Iraqi officials admitted Isis fighters had also seized a border crossing near the town of Qaim, killing 30 troops after a day-long battle.
According to the rebels, army garrisons, including at the area’s command centre, abandoned their bases and weapons, and fled.
The capture of the frontier crossing could help Isis transport weapons and other equipment to different battlefields, analysts say.
The rebels are confident that towns they do not already control along the Euphrates valley will fall without much of a fight, with the help of sympathetic local tribes, says the BBC’s Jim Muir in Irbil.
Since January, they have held parts of the provincial capital Ramadi, and all of nearby Falluja, less than half an hour’s drive from Baghdad. A spokesman for the Military Councils, one of the main Sunni groups fighting alongside Isis, told the BBC the rebels’ strategic goal was the capital itself.
In the meantime they are clearly trying to take the string of towns along the Euphrates between Falluja and the western border, says our correspondent.
There is deep pessimism in Baghdad about the government’s war against Isis, who appear better trained, equipped and more experienced than the country’s army, diplomats and politicians have told the BBC.
