BAGHDAD
Eight people lost their lives, including a police officer, and 10 others were wounded in three separate incidents in Baghdad and Babil on Saturday, police said.
Three people were killed and eight others were wounded when an improvised explosive device exploded in a market place in Sabaa al-Bour area in northern Baghdad, a police captain who preferred not to divulge his name said.
Unknown assailants shot an Iraqi police colonel dead after chasing him as he drove on a highway in eastern Baghdad.
A bomb explosion in al-Mowayleha area in Babil governorate, located 100 kilometers (63 miles) south of Baghdad, left four people dead and two others wounded, police said.
Meanwhile, 45 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants were killed in the western province of Anbar Saturday.
Fifteen ISIL militants were killed in the U.S-led international coalition’s airstrikes, which were carried out in coordination with Iraqi security forces, and targeted an ISIL checkpoint in al-Khauza area, according to the Iraqi army’s General Diyaa Kazim Dabous.
Also, Iraqi security forces, backed by tribal fighters, killed 30 ISIL militants in two areas in the western al-Baghdadi district. Iraqi forces seized control of the two areas from ISIL, said Malullah al-Obaidi, a government official.
Moreover, a delegation of government officials and representatives of tribes from Anbar province left for Washington Saturday.
The delegation will meet U.S. President Barack Obama to request support in the fight against ISIL, Sabah Karhout, president of Anbar province’s council, told The Anadolu Agency.
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.
