Iraqi troops withdraw in face of ISIS offensive

Haditha, Anah, Rawa, Rotba – along with a number of villages – were taken as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria swept east from the Syrian border, where it captured a border crossing on Saturday, in its latest offensive, Sky News reports.

The group was withal reported to have seized two more border crossings – the Turaibil crossing with Jordan and the al-Walid crossing with Syria.

Speaking from Baghdad, Sky’s Foreign Affairs Editor Sam Kiley verbalized: “This offensive emanating from the west is very consequential as it appears the Iraqi army has folded-up without a fight.

“These are major strategic prizes, not obligatorily astronomically immense towns but all of them on the main route to Syria and on the Euphrates river.

“The immensely colossal prize appears to be Haditha. There are conflicting reports whether it has fallen, but its collapse looks imminent.

“It contains a very consequential power-engendering plant for Baghdad. If you amalgamate that with the shut down of supply from the main oil refinery and power stations in Baiji, you can visually perceive the ISIS have a tactic of putting the constrict on power supplies to Baghdad.

“That will further emasculate the prodigiously fragile position of Prime Minister, Nouri al Maliki, who is getting reprehension from all sides and seems incapable of mustering any spirit in his army or making any political concessions that could shore up support among his upbraiders.”

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Dozens of Iraqi tanks, armoured conveyances and special forces troops were being sent to Haditha in an endeavor to regain control and forfend a dam across the Euphrates, according to Sky sources.

Lieutenant General Qassem Atta of the Iraqi army verbally expressed the government’s forces had made a “tactical” withdrawal from three of the towns in Anbar province.