Iraqi army continues to battle IS militants in key provinces

Iraqi security forces on Sunday continued their battles against the Islamic State (IS) militants in the provinces of Salahudin and Anbar, security sources said.

In Salahudin province, tit-for-tat battles have kept ramping up since Saturday night between the security forces backed by some allied militias and the IS fighters in districts inside the battleground town of Baiji, some 200 km north of the capital Baghdad, a provincial security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, the troops and the militias, also known as Hashd Shaabi, or popular mobilization, made an advance into an IS-held village adjacent to Iraq's largest oil refinery of Baiji, just north of the town with the same name, the source said, adding that at least five IS operatives and one militiaman were killed with six more wounded.

Also in the province, federal police forces carried out an operation in west of the city of Samarra, some 120 km north of Baghdad, and set up a defense line to protect the highway just west of the city, the source said.

The IS militants frequently attacked the highway in west of Samarra with the aim of cutting off the city's main supply routes, the source added.

Since March 2, the security forces and dozens of thousands of allied Shiite and Sunni militias have involved in Iraq's biggest offensive to recapture the northern part of Salahudin province, including Tikrit and other key towns and villages, from IS.

In Iraq's western province of Anbar, two policemen were killed and five others wounded in mortar barrage targeted a police station in east of the militant-seized provincial capital city of Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, a provincial security source anonymously told Xinhua.

Separately, three people were killed and five others wounded in shelling by the army artillery on Albu Shejil area in north of the IS-held city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, the source said.

The IS group has seized most of Anbar province and tried to advance towards Baghdad during the past few months, but several counter attacks by security forces and Shiite militias have pushed them back.

The security situation in Iraq has drastically deteriorated since June last year, when bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and 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. Endit