At least 22 killed in car bomb attacks, clashes

BAGHDAD. — At least 22 people were killed in car bomb attacks and clashes with the militants of the Islamic State group (IS) across Iraq yesterday, while air strikes continued against positions of the extremist IS group in northern Iraq, security sources said.
In Kirkuk province, US war planes carried out air strikes against the Islamic State positions in Mullah Abdullah, Tal al-Wared and Mhawis areas in the western part of the oil-rich province, leaving dozens of IS militants killed and wounded, a provincial security source told Xinhua.

The source could not give further details about the casualties among the extremist militants, but said they evacuated their casualties to the militants-seized city of Hawijah, some 220 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, a Kurdish security source told reporters that US and French warplanes dropped leaflets on the city of Hawijah, calling on civilians to leave their homes to avoid collateral damages of air strikes.

In one attack, a booby-trapped car went off before noon near the government building in the city of Mahmoudiyah, some 30 km south of Baghdad, leaving three people killed and 14 wounded, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Another attack followed when a car bomb detonated near the city hospital, where ambulances and civilian cars evacuated the victims of the first blast to be hospitalized, killing two people and wounding six others, the source said.

In Salahudin province, at least five militants of the Islamic State group, an al-Qaida offshoot, were killed in clashes in the morning with security forces backed by fighters of the Sunni tribe of Jubour in the town of Dhuluiyah, some 90 km north of Baghdad, a provincial security source told Xinhua.

Two more Islamic State militants were killed in a premature explosion while they were planting a bomb in north of Dhuluiyah, the source said.
Jubour tribesmen and local police have been fighting militants of the Islamic State group for more than two months and repelled many attacks by the extremist group which once seized the town but was driven out.

Separately, the Islamic State militants executed to shepherds near the town of Yathrib, about 80km north of Baghdad, because they are from the Sunni tribe of Timim, which is known of its opposition and fighting against the Islamic State militant group, the source added.

In Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala, Iraqi security forces backed by Shiite militias and some 300 militants of Izza Sunni tribe carried out an offensive against the Islamic State militants in a cluster of villages in north of the town of Mansouriyah, some 110km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial security source anonymously told Xinhua.

The troops and allied militiamen managed to free 13 villages which have been under control of the Islamic State militants for more than two months, the source said, adding that the battles resulted in the killing of eight insurgent militants and the destroying of six of their vehicles. — Xinhua.