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25 killed in air strikes, clashes with IS in Iraq

Xinhua, June 27, 2015 Adjust font size:

A total of 25 people were killed and 24 wounded on Saturday in Iraqi air strikes and clashes with Islamic State (IS) militants across Iraq, security sources said.

In Anbar province, at least 12 IS militants were killed when an Iraqi aircraft carried out an air strike on an IS position in the town of Qaim, near the Iraqi-Syrian border, a provincial security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Separately, an army helicopter gunship pounded the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, leaving four people killed and seven others injured, 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.

In Salahudin province, Iraqi security forces and allied militias known as Hashd Shaabi, or popular mobilization, clashed with the IS militants in the battlefield town of Baiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad, and the nearby oil refinery, leaving at least eight IS militants killed and two others were arrested, along with destroying four IS vehicles, a provincial security source told Xinhua.

The clashes in the province came as part of continuing heavy clashes between the troops and IS militants during the past few days, as the troops are fighting to free Baiji from IS militants who captured parts of the town and the refinery, the source added.

Since March 2, security forces 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 province, including Tikrit and other key towns and villages.

In Baghdad, a booby-trapped car detonated at a commercial area in the southern part of the capital, killing a civilian and wounding 17 others, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.

Iraq has been witnessing some of the worst violence in years. Terrorism and violence have killed at least 12,282 civilians and wounded 23,126 others in 2014, according to United Nations report. Endit