Iraqi forces said they fought off an overnight attack by Islamic State militants near the city of Ramadi, which the insurgents overran at the weekend in the most significant setback for the government in a year. Islamic State is seeking to consolidate its gains in the vast desert province of Anbar, of which Ramadi is capital, where only pockets of territory remain under government control. The IS advance has exposed the shortcomings of Iraq's army and the limitations of U.S. air strikes. Government forces backed by Shi'ite militias have meanwhile been building up at a base near Ramadi in preparation for a counterattack to retake the city, where Sunni Islamic State forces have taken over tanks and artillery and large amounts of ammunition abandoned by fleeing Iraqi forces. The Anbar police chief, Kadhum al-Fahdawi, said reinforcements were arriving as Iraqi forces dug in. The U.S.-led coalition staged 25 air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria since early on Tuesday. There was however no indication that the counterattack on Ramadi was imminent. Ramadi was Islamic State's biggest success since it captured the northern city of Mosul last year and declared itself an Islamic caliphate. While it has been forced to give ground in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town, and in the Syrian city of Kobani, the group still controls large areas of Iraq and Syria. In Syria, Islamic State made further advances, seizing around a third of the ancient city of Palmyra on Wednesday. The city is home to a World Heritage site and Syria's antiquities chief has said the insurgents would destroy ancient ruins if they took control of it. While hundreds of statues have been taken to safe locations, there are fears for monuments that cannot be moved. But in northeastern Syria, Kurdish forces and U.S.-led air strikes have killed at least 170 Islamic State members this week, a Kurdish official and the Observatory said.
