Shi'ite Forces Called in After Islamic State Seizes Ramadi

Shi'ite militia fighters have been called to the Iraqi city of Ramadi in an attempt to regain control of the vital city from Islamic State forces, which hoisted their infamous black flag over the city after battling for control over the weekend.

The Islamic State engaged with local military forces after days of fighting that began on Thursday evening at sundown, when the terror group used multiple suicide bombings and a raid on local government buildings to gain control of the city, located 78 miles from the capital of Baghdad.

The Shi'ite group Hashid Shaabi was deployed to Ramadi by Iraqi government forces in an attempt to regain the city on Monday. The Islamic State's taking of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's largest province of Anbar, serves as a significant blow to the U.S.-led mission to defeat the terrorist group, started last summer.

"Ramadi, by military standards, has completely fallen to Daesh," Taha Abdul Ghani, a member of Anbar's local government council, told the Wall Street Journal in a recent interview.

Iraqi officials have warned that the recent taking of Ramadi could lead to more substantial territorial gains by the Islamic State, including the village of Husaybah, which leads to the Habbaniya air base, located 20 miles east of Ramadi.

"If there is no help from the government, they will take [Husaybah]," Rafia al-Fahdawi, a tribal leader from a village close to Ramadi, told The Washington Post.

According to Reuters, the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State has stepped up recent airstrikes in the Ramadi area, conducting 19 airstrikes in the past 72 hours.