Iraq's Shi'ite paramilitaries said on May 26 they had taken charge of the campaign to drive Islamic State from the western province of Anbar, giving the operation an openly sectarian codename that could infuriate its Sunni Muslim population.
The Iraqi government is scrambling to reverse the fall of Ramadi, its biggest military setback in nearly a year. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed to recapture the city, the Anbar provincial capital, within days.
Shi'ite militiamen, supported by a smaller group of government troops, advanced on May 26 to within a few kilometers of a university on Ramadi's southwestern edge, police sources and Sunni tribal fighters allied to the government said.
As they passed through farmland south of Ramadi, the militiamen told people to return home and stay inside, promising they would not be harmed.
The loss of Ramadi a week ago was swiftly followed by the fall of the UNESCO heritage city of Palmyra in Syria, the two biggest gains by Islamic State fighters since the United States began air strikes on them in Iraq and Syria last year.
Islamic State controls swathes of territory in both countries, where it has proclaimed a caliphate to rule over all Muslims according to strict medieval precepts.
Its gains in the past week have raised doubts about the US strategy to bomb the militants from the air but leave fighting on the ground to local Iraqi and Syrian forces.
