ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least 3,000 Shiite militants from Popular Mobilization Units, or Hashd al-Shaabi, have arrived in Anbar province to liberate the ISIS-held provincial capital Ramadi, which fell to the jihadis this week, the Anbar Provincial Council has claimed. “About 3,000 Hashd al-Shaabi gunmen came from Babel province and have already deployed to the Habaniya military base some 30 kilometers east of Ramadi,” the council said in a statement Monday. According to the statement, the new arrivals are well-armed and “have great military capacity” to fight against ISIS, which has been able to take control of as much as 90 percent of Anbar province, according to some reports. Shiite officials announced last month that at least 60,000 members of the Hashd al-Shaabi are ready to fight alongside Iraqi security forces to expel the Islamic State from Anbar and Mosul provinces. “The Hashd al-Shaabi have become a strong and influential force to protect all Iraqi provinces against Daesh [the Arabic acronym for ISIS],” Karim Nouri, a Hashd al-Shaabi spokesman, said in April.
