BAGHDAD, Iraq
At least 29 people were killed and 33 others were wounded in various incidents across Iraq on Thursday, authorities said.
Twenty Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants were killed and 10 others were wounded in two incidents in the western province of Anbar, an Iraqi army source said.
"Sixteen militants were killed and ten others were wounded in coalition airstrikes on two ISIL bases in Ar-Rutba village," General Major Diyaa Kazem Dabbous told The Anadolu Agency.
Iraqi security forces also killed four ISIL militants in clashes in Hawd al-Tharthar area, north of Ramadi city, General Kassem al-Mohammadi, chief of Anbar’s Iraqi army forces, said.
Five people were killed and eight others were wounded in clashes between Iraqi security forces, backed by al-Hashid al-Sha’bi, a Shiite volunteer militia, and ISIL militants in Abu Gharib’s Az-Zeydan village, west of Baghdad. The death toll included one security forces personnel, one al-Hashid al-Sha’bi militia member and three ISIL militants.
In another incident, three people were killed and 10 others were wounded in an improvised explosive device blast at a market place in al-Yusufiyah town, south of Baghdad.
Separately, one person lost his life and five others were wounded in another explosion in Mahmudiyah district, south of Baghdad.
Iraqi government troops are fighting against the ISIL militants, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, since past five months.
Iraq has been gripped by a security vacuum since June 2014 when ISIL stormed the northern province of Mosul and declared what it calls a caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
