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On Thursday, militants launched an offensive on the Iraqi city Samarra, killing six people, in the latest display of aggression and weakness of the security forces.
The militants were travelling in several dozens of vehicles, some of them equipped with anti-aircraft guns. They attacked a major checkpoint to the southeast of Samarra, killing security forces guarding the border and burning their vehicles, sources said, before seining control of several parts of the city. According to security and medical sources, six policemen were killed and 24 others were wounded in the violence. They added that security forces were withdrawn from other regions to defend a well-respected Shiite shrine in Samara that was bombed in February 2006, inciting brutal Shiite-Sunni sectarian violence which led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people.
Thursday’s assault comes as the standoff between security forces and anti-government fighters in the Anbar province enters its sixth month. The cities of Fallujah and Ramadi have not been under government control since January.
The International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday said that it had for the first time in five months been able to deliver medical aid to Fallujah. It also described conditions in Fallujah as “extremely dire”. Patricia Guiote, head of the Red Cross sub-delegation in Iraq and leader of the five-member team which provided the supplies in Fallujah, said that the situation was “very worrying”.
“People are enduring a severe shortage of food, water and health care. Services at the hospital, which is the only facility still able to provide treatment for the injured and the sick, have been seriously affected by the fighting”, she said. The ICRC said that the team in Fallujah found “immense needs and a situation that is extremely dire” and that “People in the city are living through a terrible ordeal”.