by James Tweedie

ISLAMIC State (Isis) launched an overnight wave of suicide bombings against Iraqi troops, the military said yesterday.

The attacks were reported as the Syrian government joined growing criticism of the ineffectual US response to the Isis threat.

The suicide bombings near the Isis-held city of Fallujah were carried out under cover of a sandstorm on Tuesday night, just hours after the government launched a counter-offensive to liberate Anbar province.

Brigadier-General Saad Maan Ibrahim, spokesman for the joint military command, said that the militants struck near a water control station and a lock system on a canal between Lake Tharthar and the River Euphrates where army forces had been deployed for the Anbar offensive.

Brig-Gen Ibrahim added that it was not clear how many suicide attackers were involved in the bombings but they hit the army positions from multiple directions.

Fallujah, the site of two major battles between resistance forces and US occupation troops during the Iraq war, was captured by Isis last month.

The city lies between Baghdad and Ramadi, which was fell to Isis two weeks ago.

At a press conference in Damascus, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said the US-led coalition had been active in preventing the Kurdish town of Kobani from falling into Isis hands last year but this support seemed to have “evaporated” after that.

Mr Moallem added that the United States did nothing to prevent Anbar or the ancient town of Palmyra in Syria being captured by Isis.

He added that security co-ordination between the Syrian and Iraqi armies “has not reached the desired levels.”

On Monday, Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, accused the US of abandoning Iraq to Isis.

“Today, there is nobody in the fight except the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said, adding that the US “didn’t do a damn thing” to stop the Isis advance on Ramadi.

Maj-Gen Soleimani concluded that the US lacked the will to stop the militants’ advance, echoing US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter’s comment on Sunday that Iraqi troops had “no will to fight” in Ramadi.