52 IS militants killed in clashes, airstrikes in Iraq

A total of 52 Islamic State (IS) militants were killed on Monday in separate clashes and U.S.-led coalition air strikes in Iraq, security sources said.

In Iraq's western province of Anbar, hundreds of soldiers, police officers, Shiite and Sunni militias launched an operation in the militant-seized town of al-Baghdadi, some 200 km northwest of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

They retook control of part of the town, including its main police headquarters, after heavy clashes with the IS militants, a provincial security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The battles left more than 20 militants killed, the source said without giving details about the casualties of the security members.

The security forces repelled an IS attack on a neighborhood adjacent to al-Baghdadi, which was the scene of fierce clashes two days ago, leaving at least four IS fighters killed, including two suicide bombers, the source added.

On Saturday, the security forces broke the siege of the neighborhood which is housing some 1,000 families of security personnel and government-backed Sahwa paramilitary group members. They have been trapped for about ten days and the families have suffered from acute shortage in food and drinking water.

Separately, U.S. and partner-nation warplanes conducted an airstrike on IS positions near a bridge outside the militant-seized city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, killing at least five militants and wounding seven others, the source said.

Elsewhere, warplanes of the U.S.-led coalition on late Sunday night hit an IS convoy outside a village near the town of Daqouq, some 40 km south of Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk, destroying two vehicles and killing some 18 militants aboard, a local security source on condition of anonymity.

In Iraq's northern central province of Salahudin, heavy clashes erupted near the town of Is'haqi, some 90 km north of Baghdad, between the security forces and dozens of IS militants who attacked a military base, leaving at least five extremist militants killed, a provincial security source said.

The security situation in Iraq has drastically deteriorated since June 10 last year, when bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and the IS, an al-Qaida offshoot.

The IS has taken control of the country's northern province of Nineveh, and then seized swathes of territories after Iraqi security forces abandoned their posts in other predominantly Sunni provinces. Endit