Iraqi security forces on Thursday repelled two major attacks mounted by Islamic State (IS) militants west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, security sources said.

The attacks involved five suicide bombers, the sources told Xinhua.

In Iraq's western province of Anbar, security forces and allied paramilitary Sunni tribal fighters destroyed three suicide truck bomb attacks who tried to approach their positions in Albu Eitha area, just north of the provincial capital city of Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, a provincial security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Immediately after the suicide attacks, the troops, backed by U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi aircraft, repelled dozens of IS militants attacking the same security positions in the area, killing eight IS militants in addition to the three suicide bombers, the source said without providing details about the casualties among the security forces.

Separately, two suicide bombers wearing explosive vests attacked a police station early Thursday morning in the Abu Ghraib area, about 25 km west of Baghdad, and blew themselves up, a police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The two suicide bombings were followed by another attack by a group of IS militants armed with assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades, sparking heavy clashes with the police in the station, the source said.

Three policemen were killed and 10 others wounded in the suicide bombings and the subsequent clashes, the source added.

The source could not give information about the casualties among the attackers, except for the two suicide bombers.

He said that IS militants apparently withdrew from the scene and evacuated their casualties as reinforcement troops were about to intervene.

Thursday's attacks came a day after the IS militant group claimed that its suicide bombers detonated three car bombs in crowded Shiite areas across the Iraqi capital, killing at least 93 people and wounding more than 100 others.

Last December, government troops recovered Ramadi, the provincial capital of the country's largest province of Anbar.

Iraqi security forces and allied paramilitary units have been battling IS militants to recapture territories in northern and western Iraq that was seized by the IS since June 2014.

Related

• Iraqi forces repel IS attacks in Salahudin, Kirkuk provinces
• Kurdish forces repel IS attacks near Iraq's Mosul

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)