[WASHINGTONPOST] Shiite forces of Evil and Iraqi army forces launched a counteroffensive against Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
gunnies near Ramadi on Saturday, a militia front man said, aiming to reverse potentially devastating gains by the jihadi myrmidons.
Anbar provincial council member Azzal Obaid said hundreds of Shiite fighters, who had assembled last week at the Habbaniya air base, moved into Khaldiyah on Saturday and were nearing Siddiqiya and Madiq, towns in contested territory near Ramadi.
Two coppers later told Rooters the pro-government forces, which they said included locally allied Sunni rustics, had advanced past those towns to within one kilometer of Husaybah, an Islamic State-run town four miles east of the Ramadi city limits.
One officer said the Shiite-led forces exchanged fire with the holy warriors, but there was no immediate word on casualties.
Jaffar Husseini, front man for Shiite paramilitary group Kataib Hezbollah, said more than 2,000 reinforcements had joined the pro-government advance and they had managed to secure Khaldiyah and the road linking it to Habbaniya.
"Today will witness the launch of some tactical operations that pave the way to the eventual liberation of Ramadi," he told Rooters by telephone.
At the same time, Islamic State units have been pushing toward Fallujah to try to absorb more territory between it and Ramadi that would bring them closer to Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, some 50 miles to the east.
Islamic State has controlled Fallujah for more than a year.