IS militants purge Iraq’s Ramadi, look for collaborators

PanARMENIAN.Net - Islamic State militants searched door-to-door for policemen and pro-government fighters and threw bodies in the Euphrates River in a bloody purge Monday, May 18, after capturing the strategic city of Ramadi, their biggest victory since overrunning much of northern and western Iraq last year, the Associated Press reports.

Some 500 civilians and soldiers died in the extremist killing spree since the final push for Ramadi began Friday, authorities said.

Responding to a call from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, hundreds of Iranian-allied Shiite militiamen rushed to a military base near Ramadi, the capital of overwhelming Sunni Anbar province, to prepare for an assault to try to retake the city, Anbar officials said.

Some 8,000 people also fled the city, said a spokesman for the Anbar provincial government, Muhannad Haimour. It was not immediately clear how many people remained in Ramadi — once a city of 850,000 that has been draining population for months amid fighting with the extremists besieging it. An enormous exodus took place in April, when the UN estimates some 114,000 residents streamed out of Ramadi and surrounding villages.

On Monday, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said more than 6,500 families had fled in recent days, with the hospital in the nearby city of Khaldiya reporting many casualties.

Ramadi's streets were deserted a day after the city's fall, with only few people venturing out of their homes to search for food, according to residents reached by the AP.

They said IS militants were going door-to-door with lists of government sympathizers, and were breaking into the homes of policemen and pro-government tribesmen, particularly those from the large Al Bu Alwan tribe, some 30 of whom had been detained. Homes and stores owned by pro-government Sunni militiamen were looted or torched.

The White House said Monday the loss of Ramadi was "indeed a setback" and reassured Baghdad that it will help Iraqi forces take it back.

The United States, said White House spokesman Eric Schultz, always knew this would be a long fight with ebbs and flows. "Our aircraft are in the air right now and searching for ISIL targets. They will continue to do so until Ramadi is retaken," he said.

The U.S.-led coalition has launched 32 airstrikes in Ramadi in the past three weeks, including eight over the past 24 hours.