Iraq forces battle IS, more US troops heading to Anbar

Iraqi forces battling jihadists on several fronts today were poised to receive the help of 450 extra US troops slated for deployment near Ramadi.
In neighbouring Syria, a rebel alliance that includes groups supported by Washington, seized most of a military airport in a southern province controlled by the regime, a spokesman said.
State television denied the claim but both the Southern Front and a monitoring group said the regime had lost most of Al-Thaala airport in Sweida province.
They also said the rebels shot down a Syrian warplane. State TV acknowledged that an aircraft went down and said an investigation was underway.

Washington's decision to send more advisers and trainers to Iraq has failed to silence critics who say the White House lacks a strategy to combat the Islamic State group.
A year after a jihadist offensive saw the government lose swathes of Iraq, military operations to weaken IS were experiencing mixed fortunes.

The autonomous Kurdistan region's peshmerga forces pushed south and west of Kirkuk on the back of intensive bombing by Iraqi and US-led coalition warplanes, security officials said.
One of the targets was a bomb-making workshop IS had set up after their main car bomb factory in nearby Hawijah was completely levelled in a coalition air strike, one official said.

The June 3 strike caused an explosion that was heard 50 kilometres away and destroyed what some officials said was IS' largest such plant in Iraq and Syria.
Federal troops and the Popular Mobilisation -- an umbrella for mostly Shiite militias and volunteers -- also continued operations aimed at securing Baiji, north of Baghdad.
The area has seen relentless fighting over the past year and loyalists in recent days achieved some progress in pushing IS fighters out of the town of Baiji as well as from the nearby refinery, the country's largest.
Anti-IS forces launched a wide-ranging military operation early Thursday to clear "the last Daesh (IS) pockets along the Tigris River" around Baiji, an army major general said.

Establishing firm control over Baiji is seen as key to isolating IS in the vast western province of Anbar, whose reconquest is Baghdad's declared priority.
The jihadists beat the government to the punch, seizing provincial capital Ramadi on May 17 and dealing Baghdad its worst setback in almost a year.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi vowed to swiftly retake Ramadi but operations have been sluggish and questions are still being asked about the security forces' ability following their chaotic retreat from the city.