Iraqi forces push advance after seizing key town from IS

Iraqi security forces regained the town of al-Baghdadi after fierce clashes with the Islamic State (IS) militants and still fought with IS in the province of Anbar, the security and medical sources said Saturday.

The troops and allied Shiite and Sunni militias, backed by U.S.-led coalition aircraft, cleared on Friday the small town of al-Baghdadi, after they drove out the IS militants who captured the town for months and threatened the nearby military airbase of Ain al-Asad, which houses hundreds of U.S. marines, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The Ain al-Asad military base is used by Iraqi military forces and about 300 U.S. marines as military trainers and advisers.

"The security forces and al-Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization of Shiite and Sunni militias) are seizing the center of al-Baghdadi, including its police station and bridges," the source said.

It added that the adjacent areas of al-Doulab and Sin al-Deeb in southwest of the town are still in the hands of the IS militants.

Separately, the IS militants in the morning drove out the security forces and allied Shiite militias from al-Hitawiyn area, just near the town of Garma, some 40 km west of Baghdad, after heavy clashes, leaving at least eight militants killed and 10 others wounded, a local security source told Xinhua.

The clashes near Garma, came just two days after the troops seized the area as part of an offensive designed to drive out the militants who from time to time approached to Baghdad from the areas located in east of the militants-seized town of Garma and fired mortar and rockets on the Shiite neighborhood of Shula, in northwestern Baghdad, killing and wounding dozens of civilians during the past few months.

Also in the province, fierce clashes erupted in the morning in central and western parts of the provincial capital city of Ramadi, about 110 km west of Baghdad, between the security forces and IS militants who seize parts of the city, a provincial security source said, without giving further details.

A medical source from the city hospital told Xinhua that the hospital received 13 bodies of the security members and 20 others were admitted for treatment, the source said.

The IS group has seized around 80 percent of Iraq's largest province Anbar and tried to advance toward Baghdad, but several counter attacks by security forces and Shiite militias have pushed them back.

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