41 IS militants killed in airstrikes, clashes with security forces in Iraq

A total of 41 Islamic State (IS) militants were killed on Tuesday in clashes with security forces and air strikes by Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition aircraft in Iraq, while 14 civilian were killed in suicide bombing and gunfire attack in the day, security sources said.

Iraqi security forces killed five IS suicide bombers who attacked the army positions at the village of Khirbirdan in south of the IS-held city of Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the Iraqi defense ministry said in a statement.

Meanwhile, 12 IS militants also tried to approach he same army positions in Khirbirdan village, but were all killed by international warplanes before reaching their target, according to the statement.

The IS attacks came at the fifth day of an offensive launched by the security forces covered by Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition aircraft aimed at flushing out IS militants from Iraq's northern province of Nineveh and its capital Mosul.

In Iraq's western province of Anbar, the security forces retook control of Albu Diyab area in north of the provincial capital city of Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, after the IS group was forced to pull out its militants from the area by heavy airstrikes, which left some 24 extremist militants killed and six of their vehicles destroyed, a provincial security source told Xinhua.

Iraqi security forces and allied Sunni paramilitary tribal units have been battling IS militants to repossess control of large territories in northern and western Iraq, seized by the IS since June 2014.

The troops have so far recovered Ramadi, the provincial capital of the country's largest province of Anbar last December.

Separately, a security source in Salahudin province told Xinhua that 11 members of a policeman family were shot dead when a group of gunmen broke into their house at dawn and opened fire on them.

Women and children were among the killed, the source said, adding that the policeman himself was among the killed.

In Baghdad, earlier police report in the day said a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest at a crowded place in Bab al-Sharji area, where many construction workers were waiting to be hired for temporary jobs, leaving three people killed and up to 28 wounded.

Iraq is witnessing a wave of violence since the IS took control of parts of the country in June 2014.

A UN report estimated that more than 22,300 people were killed or injured in armed conflicts in Iraq in 2015. Endit