Iraqi premier faults critics over fall of Ramadi

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi hit back Monday at criticisms of his country's security forces over the fall of the western city of Ramadi to Islamic State jihadists.
A day after United States Secretary Ash Carter said Iraqi forces had "showed no will to fight" over the capital of al-Anbar province, al-Abadi said that the city would be recaptured "within days," according to dpa.
The jihadists had only captured "a small area inside Ramadi," while government forces had gained ground outside the city, the prime minister told the BBC.
Security forces were concentrating initially on areas outside the city where they were less vulnerable to the massive truck bombs with which the jihadists launched their final push for the city, he said.
"At this very point, since four days ago, five days ago... we have advanced quite greatly," he told the British broadcaster in an interview.
Islamic State captured Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's western al-Anbar province, last week. They had mounted periodic attacks on the city since January 2014.
Pro-government Shiite militias have reportedly been gathering east of Ramadi, at the Habbaniya base, ahead of a counter-offensive.
A key Iranian military commander said the fall of the city, seen as a major reverse for the Iraqi government and its allies, suggested the United States was not serious about combating the jihadists.
"Under the pretext of supporting the Iraqi nation against the IS, their [US] forces are stationed just a few kilometres away from Ramadi and they don't do a damn thing," Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Qods Force, said.
"How shall we interpret this? Is this not a clear indication that they have no determination to fight the IS?" Soleimani said in remarks quoted by the Iranian Mehr News Agency.
Soleimani has been pictured at the frontline in Iraq on several occasions.
Iran is a major supporter of the Shiite militias that have played a key role in successful government offensives since Islamic State overran much of Sunni-dominated northern and western Iraq last year.
US Defence Secretary Ash Carter on Sunday said that the fall of Ramadi "says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves."
Carter argued that the defending forces "vastly outnumbered" the jihadists.
Analysts say the fall of Ramadi means that any government offensive to recapture Iraq's second city, Mosul, from the jihadists cannot be expected soon.
In neighbouring Syria, meanwhile, the jihadists have carried out over 200 executions over the last nine days in and around the desert city of Palmyra, which it captured on Wednesday, a monitoring group reported.
The victims included 14 children and 12 women, five of them nurses accused of having treated wounded government troops, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Britain-based group said 67 of those executed were civilians.
The jihadists had also executed at least 150 government troops and allied militiamen and had captured 600 more who were likely to suffer the same fate, the Observatory said.
The capture of Palmyra, whose ancient ruins are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has given the jihadists a key strategic position controlling most of Syria's central desert and cutting off government supply lines to Deir al-Zour city, its sole remaining outpost in eastern Syria.