BAGHDAD, July 28 (Xinhua) -- Two Iraqi officers and a border guard were killed on Tuesday in two attacks by the Islamic State (IS) militants in western Iraq, the Iraqi military said.

In one incident, Brigadier General Ahmed al-Lami, the commander of the Army's 29th Brigade of the 7th Infantry Division, was killed while chasing IS militants in Heet area, some 160 km west of Baghdad, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.

Al-Lami led an force in chasing the IS militants, who were on the run after an attack on an army checkpoint that killed an officer and wounded two soldiers in Heet area, the JOC said.

In a separate incident, IS militants opened fire on an Iraqi border guard patrol near the Arar crossing point on the Iraq-Saudi Arabia border, killing a border guard and wounding four others before fleeing into the desert, a border guard officer told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The security situation in Iraq has been improving since Iraqi security forces fully defeated the IS militants across the country late in 2017.

However, IS remnants have since melted in urban areas or deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians. Enditem

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