At least 33 killed in bomb attacks, clashes with IS militants in Iraq

At least 33 people were killed and more than 47 others wounded on Thursday in bomb attacks targeting the security forces and clashes with the Islamic State (IS) militants, security source said.

In Iraq's Anbar province, Iraqi security forces and allied Sunni tribes backed by U.S.-led coalition aircraft clashed with the IS militants and seized al-Khasfa area in west of the town of Haditha, some 200 km northwest of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, a provincial security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The battles left six soldiers and nine tribesmen killed, the source said, adding that dozens of IS militants were killed by the fierce clashes, but official reports about their exact number of casualties were not immediately available.

Separately, five IS militants were killed and eight others wounded in artillery shelling by the Iraqi army on al-Shuhadaa neighborhood in the southern of the militants-seized city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, the source said.

In Iraq's northern central province of Salahudin, six Shiite militiamen were killed and 13 others wounded when a booby-trapped house at a village in south of the city of Samarra, about 120 km north of Baghdad, detonated after they entered it during a search operation, a provincial security source anonymously told Xinhua.

Earlier in the day, a police source told Xinhua that seven people were killed and 26 wounded in the morning when a car bomb detonated outside a military base in Taji area, some 20 km north of Baghdad, and followed by two suicide bombers who blew up their explosive vests at the entrance of the base.

Iraq has been witnessing some of the worst violence in years, killing at least 12,282 civilians and injuring 23,126 others in 2014, the deadliest year since the flare-up of sectarian violence in 2006-2007, according to a recent UN report. Endit