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Baghdad (AFP) - Islamic State fighters seized the government compound in the city of Ramadi on Friday and edged closer to what would be their biggest victory in Iraq this year, officials said.
The loss of the capital of Anbar province, which Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had said would be the next target of government forces after wresting back Tikrit last month, would be a major setback.
The government stressed that Ramadi had not fallen yet and announced that a major counter-offensive was under way as Abadi held an emergency meeting with top security officials.
IS has threatened to take control of Ramadi for months, and the breakthrough came after a wide offensive on multiple fronts in the province, including an assault using several suicide car bombs in Ramadi on Thursday.
The jihadists seized the government complex at around 2:00 pm (1100 GMT) and raised the black flag, a police officer said, giving them nearly full control over Anbar's capital.
IS "now occupies the government centre in Ramadi and has also raised its flag over the police HQ for Anbar", the police major told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The group itself issued a statement saying its fighters broke into the government complex, and blew up the adjacent buildings of Anbar's governorate and the police headquarters.
- 'No command post' -
A senior tribal leader in charge of the coordination of local fighters with regular government forces also confirmed the government complex had fallen.
"The only (government) forces still fighting are confined to a few pockets in Ramadi but they have no command post any more," Sheikh Hekmat Suleiman told AFP by phone.
Provincial council member Adhal Obeid al-Fahdawi had described the situation as "critical" moments earlier, and said civilians were fleeing the city centre, the second time in a month they have done so following another IS offensive in April.
"Families are trying to flee on foot, leaving their cars and homes behind, but most areas around Ramadi are under IS control," said Sheikh Jabbar Adjadj al-Assafi, a tribal leader.
The IS said earlier that it had launched several attacks on army positions east of Ramadi, including one by a British suicide bomber it named as Abu Musa al-Britani.
"Another vehicle driven by our brother martyr Abu Khobayb al-Shami attacked the Al-Majd police station near Al-Haq mosque in Ramadi, followed by an assault that killed who was left," the group said in its daily radio broadcast on Friday.
It also claimed to have killed 13 Iraqi soldiers in an attack on a hill east of Ramadi and executed 14 Sunni tribal fighters when it took over the central neighbourhood of Jamiya.
Iraqi security sources and IS said the town of Jubbah, about 180 kilometres (110 miles) northwest of Baghdad, had also been seized by jihadists.
A tribal leader said the town, near the large Al-Asad airbase where several hundred US advisers are stationed, had been left insufficiently protected.
- Counter-offensive -
"The situation in Ramadi is dangerous but the city has not fallen and the battles against the Daesh criminal organisation is still ongoing," Anbar Governor Sohaib al-Rawi said on Twitter.
An interior ministry statement said "national forces began a counter-attack to clear the areas infiltrated by IS terrorist gangs in Ramadi".
It said reinforcements had been sent to the Ramadi front and announced a series of strikes by the Iraqi air force in other parts of the province.
Both IS and government officials also reported several attacks since Thursday east of Fallujah, only a few miles from the borders of Baghdad governorate, but their outcome remained unclear.
IS named its latest Ramadi operation after Abu Muhannad al-Swaidawi, a top IS leader in Anbar who was killed in a US-led air strike, according to jihadist forums.
The organisation's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, broke a six-month silence on Thursday with an audio recording of a speech in which he played up the Anbar battle.
The group, which also controls parts of Syria, swept across the Sunni heartland of Iraq last year before proclaiming a "caliphate" and attracting record numbers of foreign fighters.
A US-led air campaign launched in August helped the central government in Baghdad and the autonomous Kurds in the north turn the tide on IS.
The jihadists have since lost significant ground but still hold Mosul, the country's second city, and Anbar, whose capital lies 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Baghdad.
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