ISIS Takes Army Camp, Baghdad Bombings Kill 30

Islamic State closer to controlling Anbar province
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Oct 13, 2014 3:29 PM CDT
ISIS Takes Army Camp, 30 Die in Baghdad Bombings
Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari speaks to his British counterpart Philip Hammond in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Oct. 13, 2014. Hammond says coalition airstrikes will not be enough to defeat ISIS.   (Karim Kadim)

Militants with the Islamic State group today captured a military training camp in western Iraq, inching closer to full control of the restive Anbar province, as a spate of deadly bombings shook Baghdad, hitting mostly Shiite neighborhoods and leaving at least 30 dead. The attacks, which came as Iraqi Shiites marked a major holiday for their sect with families crowding the streets in celebration, raised new concerns that the Sunni militant group is making gains despite US-led coalition airstrikes. British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, on a visit to Iraq, warned that the airstrikes will not be enough to defeat the extremist group and stressed that the Iraqi security forces would have to do the "heavy work on the ground."

But Iraqi troops, overstretched and overwhelmed by the Islamic State group's summer blitz that seized large swaths of territory in western and northern Iraq, continued to come under pressure today in the western Anbar province, where militants seized an Iraqi military training camp. The camp, near the town of Hit that fell to the insurgents earlier this month, was overrun in the morning hours after clashes with Iraqi soldiers who were forced to abandon the camp and withdraw from the area, two Anbar officials say. The Baghdad attacks, hitting three Shiite-majority neighborhoods, came as many Iraqi Shiite families took to the streets to celebrate a holiday that commemorates the Shiite Imam Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law and the sect's most sacred martyr. (More ISIS stories.)

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