BAGHDAD, Iraq
Daesh militants advanced into the city of Baiji in Iraq’s Saladin province Monday, where they seized a number of local neighborhoods, according to an army source.
Captain Ghazzawi al-Jabouri told Anadolu Agency that Daesh attacked Baiji with car-bombs and artillery, “forcing Iraqi troops to retreat to the southern part of the city.”
According to al-Jabouri, Daesh militants seized control of at least five of the city’s districts following clashes with Iraqi forces.
“Daesh deployed numerous snipers in western Baiji while Iraqi forces attempted to safely withdraw from the area with cover from the Iraqi air force,” al-Jabouri said.
A medical source at Samarra General Hospital told Anadolu Agency, on condition of anonymity, that the hospital received 12 dead Iraqi army soldiers and another 20 injured troops.
In Iraq’s Kirkuk province, meanwhile, three Kurdish Peshmerga fighters were killed and ten injured in clashes with Daesh militants that erupted late Sunday, according to local security sources.
The sources told Anadolu Agency on Monday that Daesh militants had attacked Peshmerga forces in two villages in the Maryem Bek area located some 35 kilometers south of Kirkuk.
Scores of Daesh militants, the sources said, had been killed in the fighting.
Over the course of the last year, the Iraqi army – supported by the Shia Al-Hashd al-Shaabi militia and Peshmerga forces – has been fighting Daesh across the war-torn country.
