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6 IS militants, civilian killed in air strike, bomb attack in Iraq

Xinhua, September 18, 2016 Adjust font size:

Six Islamic State (IS) militants were killed on Saturday in an airstrike in Salahudin province, while a roadside bomb attack killed a civilian in the northern province of Kirkuk, security sources said.

In Iraq's northern central province of Salahudin, a helicopter gunship bombed two IS vehicles near Ajil oil filed in northeast of the provincial capital city of Tikrit, which itself located 170 km north of Baghdad, destroying the vehicles and killing six IS militants aboard, a provincial security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The small Ajil oilfield was captured by IS militants following the June 10, 2014 blitzkrieg when the group seized large swathes of territories in predominantly Sunni provinces, but the oilfields were freed by the Iraqi forces in March 2015.

The extremist IS group repeatedly failed to regain control of Ajil oilfield. It used to be an important source of funding for the IS, which extracted about 10,000 barrels per day and transported to other areas under its control.

In the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, at least one worshiper was killed and four others wounded when a roadside bomb detonated near the entrance of al-Safa mosque in southern Kirkuk, as dozens of worshipers were leaving the mosque after the evening prayer, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Since the U.S.-led invasion to Iraq, tensions have long been high in the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk which is part of the disputed areas claimed by the Kurds and both Arabs and Turkomans.

The Kurds want to incorporate the areas on the edge of their Kurdistan region, but Baghdad government fiercely opposes their move.

Terrorist acts, violence and armed conflicts killed 691 Iraqis and wounded 1,016 others in August across Iraq, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq said earlier.

Many blame the current chronic instability, cycle of violence, and the emergence of extremist groups, such as the IS, on the U.S. that invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003. Endit