Islamic State militants have taken control of Ramadi, a key Iraqi city in the country's Anbar province, in what appears to be a "significant blow" to the U.S.-backed effort to combat the terrorist group. Local police announced the ISIS takeover on Friday, saying that the militants had seized a government compound.
ISIS had already seized much of Anbar last summer. The recent offensive began on Thursday night and continued through Friday morning, and more than 60 police officers were killed in the fighting.
The news comes as ISIS released a recording on Thursday purportedly from leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in which the speaker says that "Islam was never a religion of peace."
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Sohaib Alrawi, the province's governor, tweeted that the situation in Ramadi is "dire."
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