Over 2,000 families flee Iraqi city as fighting rages

Over 2,000 families have been forced to flee the Iraqi city of Ramadi owing to heavy clashes between the Islamic State (IS) militants and government forces.

Most of the displaced families headed to capital Baghdad and settled in predominantly Sunni districts in southern and western Baghdad, a security source told Xinhua news agency.

While clashes continued in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's western province of Anbar, a major offensive was on to recapture areas north of Tikrit in the Salahudin province from the IS, security sources said.

The security situation in Ramadi, 110 km west of Iraq's capital Baghdad, has deteriorated since Friday when IS militants carried out attacks and captured the Albu Farraj area in the northern side of Euphrates river, which separates the area from Ramadi.

The militants spread out in Ramadi on Wednesday and captured Soufiyah, Albu Ghanim, Albu Mahal and Albu Souda areas east of the city, which has been partially under the control of the IS for months.

The IS has seized parts of Iraq's largest province of Anbar and tried to advance towards Baghdad, but several counter attacks by security forces and Shia militias have driven them away.

Since March 2, about 30,000 Iraqi troops and thousands of allied Shia and Sunni militias have been involved in Iraq's biggest offensive to recapture the northern part of Salahudin province, including Tikrit, and other key towns and villages from IS militants.

Security in Iraq has deteriorated drastically since last June, when bloody clashes broke out between the Iraqi security forces and IS militants, who took control of the country's northern city of Mosul, later seizing swathes of territories in Nineveh and other predominantly Sunni provinces.