IRAQI authorities in Anbar province said today that they have lifted a curfew brought in for fear of an Islamic State (Isis) advance on the region’s capital Ramadi.

Anbar provincial council chairman Sabah Karhout said Isis fighters continued to shell some parts of the city but had failed to seize any more territory.

The curfew was scrapped on Saturday as Iraqi MPs approved Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s choices for the defence and interior ministries.

Ex-military officer Khaled al-Obeidi, a Sunni lawmaker from Mosul, was picked as defence minister, and Mohammed Salem al-Ghabban, a Shi’ite politician and member of the Iran-linked Badr Organisation, was chosen as interior minister.

Control over the two powerful security ministries has long been a source of tension, particular in light of sectarian former PM Nouri al-Maliki’s alienation of Iraq’s Sunnis.

Discontent among Sunnis is widely seen as having fuelled the advance of Isis since June, when the terror group captured Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul.