It was apparently sparked by an attempt by Iraqi security forces on Monday to dismantle a Sunni Muslim protest camp that has served for the last year as a staging point for huge anti-government demonstrations.
While locals claim the demonstrations are purely peaceful protests against discrimination by Iraq’s Shia-majority government, the country’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, claimed the camp had become infiltrated by Sunni militants from al-Qaeda.
When the troops moved in, the unrest quickly spread to nearby Fallujah, forcing them to pull out of both cities. According to interior ministry officials, militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the country’s new al-Qaeda franchise, then began setting up checkpoints across parts of both cities.
In Ramadi, a journalist for the AFP news agency saw dozens of trucks carrying heavily armed men in the east of the city, playing songs praising ISIL and carrying its black flags. Four police stations were destroyed.
The militants’ re-appearance terrified local residents, many of whom remember the beheadings and brutal sharia punishments that took place when al-Qaeda last controlled the region in 2007.
“We are not leaving our homes because of what is happening,” said resident Abdel Nasser. “There is no food. Even if you manage to go to the market, you find nothing.”
In a sign of the weakness of the regular Iraqi security forces, police in the nearby city of Fallujah abandoned most of their positions, allowing the militants to snatch weapons and free more than 100 prisoners.
On Thursday the interior ministry demanded that the deserters return “and do their patriotic duty in confronting the terrorist attack”.
Iraqi security forces were later said to have regained the initiative, joining up with local Sunni tribal militias who are also opposed to al-Qaeda. Tanks were reported on Fallujah’s eastern edge.
“We entered Fallujah with heavy clashes,” said Major General Fadhel al-Barwari, a special forces commander.
Some analysts played down the significance of the al-Qaeda attack, saying that the group was still too small in numbers to hold a major city against government security forces.
But the fact that it feels able to attempt even temporary control shows how emboldened the group has now become. Buoyed by the success of fellow Sunni militants in the civil war in Syria - where another Shia regime is fighting for survival - it is now considered every bit as deadly a threat as it was during the US occupation.
A devastating al-Qaeda-led car bomb campaign, mounted mainly in Shia neighbourhoods, has pushed Iraq’s death rate back to around 1,000 per month. And last summer, a well-planned al-Qaeda attack on Baghdad’s heavily-guarded Abu Ghraib prison freed nearly 1,000 inmates, including hundreds of hard-core al-Qaeda members.
The unrest has also been reflected at the political level, with 44 MPs, most of them Sunni, announcing their resignations from the parliament on Monday.
They were protesting partly over the release of fellow Sunni parliamentarian Ahmed al-Alwani, a leading supporter of the protest camp who was arrested in a raid on his Ramadi home on Saturday.
While locals claim the demonstrations are purely peaceful protests against discrimination by Iraq’s Shia-majority government, the country’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, claimed the camp had become infiltrated by Sunni militants from al-Qaeda.
When the troops moved in, the unrest quickly spread to nearby Fallujah, forcing them to pull out of both cities. According to interior ministry officials, militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the country’s new al-Qaeda franchise, then began setting up checkpoints across parts of both cities.
In Ramadi, a journalist for the AFP news agency saw dozens of trucks carrying heavily armed men in the east of the city, playing songs praising ISIL and carrying its black flags. Four police stations were destroyed.
The militants’ re-appearance terrified local residents, many of whom remember the beheadings and brutal sharia punishments that took place when al-Qaeda last controlled the region in 2007.
“We are not leaving our homes because of what is happening,” said resident Abdel Nasser. “There is no food. Even if you manage to go to the market, you find nothing.”
In a sign of the weakness of the regular Iraqi security forces, police in the nearby city of Fallujah abandoned most of their positions, allowing the militants to snatch weapons and free more than 100 prisoners.
On Thursday the interior ministry demanded that the deserters return “and do their patriotic duty in confronting the terrorist attack”.
Iraqi security forces were later said to have regained the initiative, joining up with local Sunni tribal militias who are also opposed to al-Qaeda. Tanks were reported on Fallujah’s eastern edge.
“We entered Fallujah with heavy clashes,” said Major General Fadhel al-Barwari, a special forces commander.
Some analysts played down the significance of the al-Qaeda attack, saying that the group was still too small in numbers to hold a major city against government security forces.
But the fact that it feels able to attempt even temporary control shows how emboldened the group has now become. Buoyed by the success of fellow Sunni militants in the civil war in Syria - where another Shia regime is fighting for survival - it is now considered every bit as deadly a threat as it was during the US occupation.
A devastating al-Qaeda-led car bomb campaign, mounted mainly in Shia neighbourhoods, has pushed Iraq’s death rate back to around 1,000 per month. And last summer, a well-planned al-Qaeda attack on Baghdad’s heavily-guarded Abu Ghraib prison freed nearly 1,000 inmates, including hundreds of hard-core al-Qaeda members.
The unrest has also been reflected at the political level, with 44 MPs, most of them Sunni, announcing their resignations from the parliament on Monday.
They were protesting partly over the release of fellow Sunni parliamentarian Ahmed al-Alwani, a leading supporter of the protest camp who was arrested in a raid on his Ramadi home on Saturday.
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