Despite US strikes, ISIL advances in Syria, Iraq

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadist group has made several high-profile advances in recent days, despite a US-led air campaign against the movement in Syria and Iraq.
 
On May 17, the ISIL fighters seized Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's largest province of Anbar, in their biggest victory since a major offensive in Iraq last summer.

Iraq's army and allied paramilitary forces massed around Ramadi on May 19, looking for swift action to recapture the city from the ISIL group before it builds up defenses.

With his security strategy in tatters and his authority facing its biggest challenge since he took office eight months ago, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was looking for quick redemption.

Reeling from the worst setback since ISIL grabbed swathes of territory in June last year, he called in the Shiite-dominated Popular Mobilization units (Hashed al-Shaabi).

"The Hashed have started to arrive in areas east of Ramadi," said army Brigadier General Ali al-Majidi, speaking to AFP from a base west of Baghdad.

The group has also moved to within a kilometer of Syria's Palmyra world heritage site, and has seized the town of Al-Sukhnah and two gas fields northeast of the ancient city.

The advances expand the existing territory the group holds across Syria and Iraq, the land it has labelled an Islamic "caliphate."

The fall of Ramadi is a particular blow to Iraq's government, which only last month was touting its recapture of the city of Tikrit from the jihadist group.

In Syria, Palmyra has key symbolism as both the home of world-famous Greco-Roman ruins, but also the site of one of the regime's most infamous prisons.

Homs province, in which Palmyra lies, also holds several...