Close to completing Anbar takeover – report

Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn writes in The Independent that ISIS is close to taking over the province and threatening western Baghdad. He says that an ISIS offensive launched on Oct. 2 has captured almost all the cities and towns it did not already hold in Anbar , taking Hit, Kubaisa and the provincial capital Ramadi. Other cities, towns and bases on or close to the Euphrates River west of Baghdad fell in a few days, often after little resistance by the Iraqi Army, even when backed by US air strikes.