21 killed in bomb attacks, clashes with IS in Iraq

A total of 21 people were killed and over 20 others wounded in bomb attacks, airstrikes and clashes with the Islamic State (IS) militants across Iraq on Monday, security source said.

In Iraq's western province of Anbar, Iraqi helicopter gunships pounded the positions of IS militants in the municipality building and two other districts in the IS-held city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, leaving at least eight militants killed and five wounded, a provincial security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The gunships also pounded a bridge outside the militant-seized town of Saqlawiyah, some 10 km northwest of Fallujah, and destroyed four vehicles, leaving six people killed and 10 others wounded, the source said.

Also in the province, the IS militants blew up a bridge on the main road between the provincial capital city of Ramadi and the desert area of Rahaliyah on the edge of the holy Shiite city of Karbala, the source said, adding that the blast destroyed the bridge without causing human casualty.

IS seized most of Iraq's largest province of Anbar and attempted to advance towards Baghdad, but several counter attacks by security forces and Shiite militias have pushed them back.

In Salahudin province, the IS militants carried out an overnight attack o Iraq's largest refinery of Baiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad, sparking heavy clashes with the security forces and allied Shiite and Sunni militias, who managed to repel the attackers, a provincial security source anonymously told Xinhua without giving further details on casualties.

On April 18, security forces freed the vast oil refinery of Baiji after fierce clashes with militants who had captured parts of it earlier. However, the militants repeatedly carried out failed attempts to reclaim the refinery.

The battles in Baiji refinery and the nearby town of Baiji are part of a large-scale operation launched over 10 days ago aiming to recapture areas seized by IS militants north of the province.

Furthermore, a police colonel and a policeman were killed when IS militants attacked the village of al-Mazraa, just south of Baiji, the source said.

Also in the province, four government-backed fighters of the Sunni tribe of Khazraj were killed by the IS militants who carried out an attack on their village in southeast of the town of Dujail, some 60 km north of Baghdad, the source added.

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

In Baghdad, a booby-trapped car detonated at a busy commercial area in Baiyaa district in southern the Iraqi capital, leaving a civilian killed and six others wounded, an Interior Ministry source anonymously told Xinhua.

The security situation in the country has drastically deteriorated since June last year, when bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and hundreds of IS militants, who took control of the country's northern city of Mosul and later seized swathes of territories after Iraqi security forces abandoned their posts in Nineveh and other predominantly Sunni provinces.

Earlier, a UN report said that 2014 has witnessed some of the worst violence in years, as terrorism and violence have killed at least 12,282 civilians and injured 23,126 others in 2014, making it the deadliest year ever since the sectarian violence in the period between 2006 and 2007. Endit