Thousands Flee as IS Group Advances on Iraq's Ramadi

People leave their hometown Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, April 15, 2015. The Islamic State group launched an offensive in Iraq's western Anbar province on Wednesday, capturing three villages near the provincial...

More than 2,000 families have fled the Iraqi city of Ramadi with little more than the clothes on their backs, officials said Thursday, as the Islamic State group closed in on the capital of western Anbar province, clashing with Iraqi troops and turning it into a ghost town.

The extremist group, which has controlled the nearby city of Fallujah for more than a year, captured three villages on Ramadi's eastern outskirts on Wednesday. The advance is widely seen as a counteroffensive after the Islamic State group lost the city of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, earlier this month.

Hundreds of U.S. troops are training Iraqi forces at a military base west of Ramadi, but a U.S. military official said the fighting had no impact on the U.S. soldiers there, and that there were no plans to withdraw them.

The fleeing Ramadi residents were settling in the southern and western suburbs of Baghdad, and tents, food and other aid were being sent to them, said Sattar Nowruz, an official of the Ministry of Migration and the Displaced.

The ministry was assessing the situation with the provincial government in order "to provide the displaced people, who are undergoing difficult conditions, with better services and help," Nowruz said.

Sporadic clashes were still underway Thursday, according to security officials in Ramadi. Government forces control the city center, while the IS group has had a presence in the suburbs and outskirts for months. They described Ramadi as a ghost town, with empty streets and closed shops.

Video obtained by The Associated Press showed plumes of thick, black smoke billowing above the city as fighter jets pounded militant targets. On the city outskirts, displaced residents frantically tried to make their way out amid the heavy bombardment.

U.S.-led coalition airstrikes targeted the IS group in Sjariyah, Albu-Ghanim and Soufiya, the three villages the extremists captured Wednesday, the officials added. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk to the media.

Anbar's deputy governor, Faleh al-Issawi, described the situation in Ramadi as "catastrophic" and urged the central government to send in reinforcements.

"We urge the Baghdad government to supply us immediately with troops and weapons in order to help us prevent the city from falling into the hands of the IS group," he told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.

The spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, said access to the city was limited but humanitarian workers were trying to verify the reports of fleeing residents. Prior to the current bout of fighting, some 400,000 Iraqis were already displaced, including 60,000 in Ramadi district, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Al-Bayan, the Islamic State group's English-language radio station, claimed IS fighters had seized control of at least six areas and most of a seventh to the east of Ramadi since Wednesday, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant websites.

American troops fought some of their bloodiest battles in Anbar during the eight-year U.S. intervention, when Fallujah and Ramadi were strongholds of al-Qaida in Iraq, a precursor to the IS group. Fallujah was the first Iraqi city to fall to the militants, in January 2014.