Iraq treads on bloody blade as army battling tit-for-tat with IS

A total of 25 people were killed and 28 wounded on Monday in air strikes, clashes with the Islamic State (IS) militants and violent attacks across Iraq, security sources said.

In the western province of Anbar, at least three soldiers wee killed and six others wounded in mortar barrage by IS militants on a military base in east of the IS-held city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, a provincial security told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, the army helicopter gunships pounded the IS positions in Haiyakil area, just south of Fallujah, and killed an IS local leader and five of his aides, the source said.

In addition, five soldiers were killed and seven injured in an ambush by IS militants in Khasfa area in east of the town of Baghdadi, some 200 km northwest of Baghdad, the source added.

Earlier in the day, the source told Xinhua that Iraqi warplane carried out an air strike on suspected positions of IS militant group in the city of Fallujah, leaving at least six people killed and nine others injured.

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, the security forces and allied militias known as Hashd Shaabi, or popular mobilization, recaptured a residential area in west of Iraq's largest oil refinery of Baiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad, a provincial security source told Xinhua.

The operation in Baiji was designed to impose a siege on the vast refinery in a bid to free it from IS militants, the source said.

Meanwhile, heavy clashes between the troops and the IS militants continued in the battleground town of Baiji, just south of the oil refinery, as the troops have been fighting for days to free the town from the extremist militants who capture parts of the town, the source said.

Since March 2, the security forces and dozens of thousands of allied Shiite and Sunni militias have involved in Iraq's biggest offensive to recapture the northern part of Salahudin province, including Tikrit and other key towns and villages, from the IS.

Earlier, a Baghdad police source told Xinhua that unidentified gunmen shot dead four people when they opened fire from their assault rifles on their car running on a highway in eastern the capital.

In a separate incident, a roadside bomb went off at a marketplace in Abu Dsheir district in southern Baghdad, leaving a civilian killed and six others wounded, along with damaging several nearby shops and buildings, the source said.

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 a recent United Nations report. Enditem