(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Thousands of Shia militiamen yesterday prepared to fight Islamic State insurgents who seized the Iraqi provincial capital Ramadi at the weekend in the biggest defeat for government forces in nearly a year.
A column of 3,000 Shia militia fighters assembled at a military base near Ramadi, preparing to take on Islamic State militants advancing in armoured vehicles from the captured city northwest of Baghdad, witnesses and a military officer said.
Washington played down the significance of the loss of Ramadi, the capital of the vast western Anbar province.
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