30 killed in airstrike, clashes with IS in Iraq

Baghdad: At least 30 people were killed and 27 wounded on Monday in a US-led coalition airstrike and clashes with the Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq, security sources said.

In Salahudin province, 13 IS militants were killed when the security forces repelled an attack on military positions near Mazraa village, just south of the refinery town of Baiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad, agency reported citing police chief of Baiji Colonel Saad Nufous.

The troops also managed to seize weapons and vehicles left by the IS militants while they withdrew from the scene, Nufous said.

Also in the province, eight security members were killed and 13 wounded in separate clashes near the city of Samarra, about 120 km north of Baghdad, a security source said.

Salahudin province has been the scene of Iraq’s biggest offensive since March 2, which involves some 30,000 Iraqi troops and thousands of allied Shia and Sunni militias aimed at recapturing the northern part of the province, including Tikrit and other key towns and villages, from IS militants.

In Iraq’s western province of Anbar, a US-led airstrike hit a group of IS militants on a bridge in south of the IS-held city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, leaving nine militants killed and 14 others wounded, a security source said.

The IS group seized parts of Iraq’s largest province of Anbar and tried to advance toward Baghdad, but several counter attacks by security forces and Shia militias 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 the IS.