ISIS seizes Iraqi town al-Baghdadi located 5 miles from US air base

#ISIS #albaghdadi #iraq #alanbar #pentagon #alasadairbase ISIS has ideas of spreading its wings beyond Syria and Iraq in order to establish militant affiliates in other countries and hence have, apparently, seized the town of al-Baghdadi, in Iraq’s Anbar Province, located hardly 5 miles from an air base staffed by U.S. Marines.
As per reports on foxnews.com dated 15 February 2015, hundreds of Islamic State fighters have captured nearly the whole of the city of al-Baghdadi. This city is 55 miles from the capital Ramadi.
It seems earlier, Iraqi soldiers had retaken several government buildings, but the soldiers had to subsequently withdraw handing the town back to the militants. As one local Iraqi official has admitted – ninety percent of al-Baghdadi district is now under the control of the insurgents.
It has been revealed by the Pentagon that the ISIS militants had launched attack on the town of al-Baghdadi from two directions before advancing inward. This is seen by observers as the first territorial gain by the militant group in months.
Incidentally, the Islamic state fighters had led a suicide attack on the Ayn al-Asad air base, where U.S. Marines are training Iraqi troops. In this attack, most of the ISIS fighters died – they were either killed by Iraqi government forces or by detonating their suicide vests.
As per estimates, there were 20-25 militants, most of them in uniforms of the Iraqi military, involved in the attack on the air base located in Iraq's Anbar province.
American intelligence officials believe that the number of fighters in the terror group have reached as many as 31,000 in Syria and Iraq. Alongside, there are nearly 2,600 U.S. forces in Iraq and, out of these, about 450 are training Iraqi troops at three bases across the country. The base at al-Asad is one of these bases.

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