Apparently someone forgot to tell al-Qaeda they have been defeated by Barack Obama.

Via NY Times:

Sunni militants fighting under the banner of Al Qaeda appeared to make gains across Anbar Province on Saturday, using snipers and rocket-propelled grenades in heavy street fighting, as they secured nearly full control of Falluja and captured the strategic town Karma. Government forces and the tribal militias fighting with them seemed unable to resist the militants’ advances.

One senior police official in Anbar said Saturday that “Falluja is completely under the control of Al Qaeda.” Other reports suggested that some areas on the city’s outskirts were still being contested, while government forces positioned themselves outside Falluja. They shelled the city throughout Friday night and into Saturday morning, killing at least 19 civilians and wounding dozens more, according to a hospital official in Falluja. Civilians, terrified and running low on food, were fleeing the major cities to desert villages and, in some cases, to the homes of relatives in Baghdad.

The fighting that has been going on for days has proved to be a crucial test for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government, which is facing an escalating Sunni-led insurgency that threatens to tear the country apart. The unrest and the seeming inability of the Iraqi government forces, who were trained and equipped by the United States at a cost of billions of dollars, to quell it underscores the steady deterioration of Iraq’s security since the last American troops left two years ago. […]

At the same time, while some Sunni tribal militias are fighting against the militants alongside the security forces, in other cases tribesmen are reportedly battling the government with Al Qaeda, creating a complex, three-way fight in some areas.

On Saturday, according to police officials in Anbar, militants took control of Karma, a town between Falluja and Ramadi, after several hours of clashes.

Police officials and witnesses in Anbar reported that militants had in several cases ambushed convoys of troops and seized heavy weapons. On Friday night, gunmen ambushed an army patrol just north of Falluja, killing four soldiers and making off with eight Humvees, according to a police official. The soldiers, more than 50 of them, escaped and sought the protection of a local sheikh; they exchanged their uniforms for dishdashas, traditional Arab gowns, and were driven to a nearby village, the official said.