Iraqi forces in fierce clashes with IS militants in strategic towns

Iraqi security forces on Saturday continued clashes with the Islamic State (IS) militants in the two provinces of Anbar and Salahudin, leaving at least 15 dead, security sources said.

In Anbar province, security forces backed by allied Shiite and Sunni militias and covered with Iraqi and U.S.-led aircraft retook control of several areas near the militant-seized town of Garma, some 50 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, a provincial security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

During the operation, the troops killed at least nine IS militants and wounded 17 others, while airstrikes destroyed 14 IS positions, the source said.

The battle to recapture Garma is part of the ongoing operations against the IS militants launched earlier in the month to drive out the extremist militants who from time to time approached Baghdad and fired mortar and rockets on the Shiite neighborhood of Shula, killing and wounding dozens of civilians during the past few months.

On Wednesday, Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi said that the priority of the Iraqi security forces is to focus on the Sunni heartland of Anbar in western Iraq, including the town of Garma, despite the significance of Iraq's second largest city of Mosul, which has been seized by the IS militants since June last year.

"We are now focusing on Anbar. We have started with the town of Garma and soon we will liberate Garma and the nearby Fallujah (50 km west of Baghdad)," Obeidi said, adding that security forces are planning to free the town of Heet, some 160 km west of Baghdad, which strategically is of a high importance.

For months, Anbar province has been the scene of fierce clashes between the IS militants and the security forces, which has gained support from some of the local Sunni tribes who rejected the presence of the extremist IS group.

In Iraq's northern central province of Salahudin, the Iraqi security forces and allied militias backed by Iraqi aircraft, freed the village of al-Malha, just south of the battlefield town of Baiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad, a provincial security source anonymously told Xinhua.

"At least four IS militants and two soldiers were killed in the village," the source said.

The troops pushed out the extremist militants from the village after they captured it a few days ago with the aim of cutting the supply route of the security forces who have been fighting for months in the refinery town of Baiji which the IS militants still clinging in the western part of the town, the source said.

The clashes in Baiji came as the battles to free the provincial capital city of Tikrit from IS militants have been stalled as the militants planted thousands of bombs and booby-trapped dozens of buildings and cars.

But sporadic clashes continue after 11 days of operation in the city which located some 170 km north of Baghdad.

Since March 2, some 30,000 Iraqi troops and thousands of allied Shiite and Sunni militias have been involved in Iraq's biggest offensive to recapture Tikrit and other key towns and villages in the northern part of Salahudin province from IS militants.

In June last year, the IS took control of the country's northern city of Mosul and later seized swathes of territory in Nineveh and other predominantly Sunni provinces. Endit