ISIS captures town in western Iraq as battle for Mosul continues

Mosul residents flee from the city on Monday.
(Image credit: Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images)

On Monday, Islamic State militants took control of Rutba, a town of 20,000 people in Iraq's western Anbar province that controls the road from Baghdad to Jordan and Syria.

They overran the mayor's office, executed at least five people, and fanned across several neighborhoods, Al Jazeera reports. Rutba is a "very strategic town," Al Jazeera's Imran Khan says, and this is "seen as a significant victory. The fact that they lost this town is very significant."

The town's capture took place as more than 400 miles away, Iraqi forces, Kurdish peshmerga troops, and others continued to make their way to Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the last ISIS stronghold in the country. Soldiers spent Monday fighting in two villages near Mosul, passing out food and water to residents after the battles were over. On Sunday, the U.S.-led coalition announced it was behind six airstrikes near Mosul, which destroyed 19 ISIS fighting positions, 17 vehicles, artillery, and tunnels.

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Catherine Garcia

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.