ISIS is now dangerously close to a base where US Marines are training Iraqi soldiers

90% of town of al-Ramadi is under ISIS control.

Islamic State insurgents took control on Thursday of most of the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, threatening an air base where U.S. Marines are training Iraqi troops, officials said.

Al-Baghdadi, about 85 km (50 miles) northwest of Ramadi in Anbar province, had been besieged for months by the radical Sunni Islamist militants who captured vast swathes of Iraq’s north and west last year.

“Ninety percent of al-Baghdadi district has fallen under the control of the insurgents,” district manager Naji Arak told Reuters by phone.

A Reuters report on the situation claims the heavy fighting in al-Baghdadi is much more significant than the Pentagon is letting be known. In fact, Reuters says al-Baghdadi is now in complete control of ISIS. The same report references claims from intelligence sources that say al-Asad has been attacked but so far the attack was unsuccessful.

Militants attacked al-Baghdadi from two directions earlier in the day and then advanced on the town, intelligence sources and officials in the Jazeera and Badiya operations commands said.

The officials said another group of insurgents then attacked the heavily-guarded Ain al-Asad air base five km southwest of the town, but were unable to break into it.