IRBIL, Iraq — The Islamic State on Saturday consolidated its control over Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's largest province, whose capture by the terrorists on Friday was the worst defeat for the Iraqi government since the fall of Mosul nearly a year ago.
Iraqi officials said Islamic State fighters were combing through neighborhoods in search of government employees and pro-government tribal fighters, and were conducting public executions.
Mohammed Kubaisi, mayor of Ramadi, said by phone that some government soldiers and police had withdrawn to a northern suburb in hopes of holding out until promised reinforcements arrived from Baghdad. But as of Saturday evening, despite claims by government officials in Baghdad that troops had been deployed, no reinforcements had arrived, the mayor said.
“There are hundreds of families stuck inside Daesh-held areas, and they are being used as human shields against the coalition airstrikes,” he said, using an Arabic acronym to refer to the Islamic State.
Kubaisi said Islamic State terrorists had burned most of the government buildings they captured Friday and then withdrew “out of fear of the American planes, which would easily be able to target government facilities.”
But he said the withdrawal was simply a repositioning to safer locations and that the group controlled virtually all of Ramadi, a city with an estimated 500,000 inhabitants that had been one of the last government-held areas in Anbar province.
More than 1,300 American soldiers and Marines were killed in Anbar during the United States' occupation.
“There is no military operation to retake Ramadi,” Kubaisi said.
The Islamic State has besieged the city since January 2014. It finally overwhelmed government positions in an attack that began Thursday night with a series of suicide car bombings that forced Iraqi police and security forces to abandon their positions.
In response to the blitz, which included armored bulldozers that cleared away government defensive barriers, the United States is rushing shipments of shoulder-fired rockets to Iraq that a White House statement said would be especially useful against armored car bombs.
“Daesh fighters have blocked anyone from leaving the area and are searching for government soldiers and tribesmen that have opposed them,” said a resident reached by phone. “They're executing people in the streets, I have seen at least 20 myself, and there are no government forces left in the main sections of the city. We have been abandoned to Daesh.”
