23 killed in Iraq violence

At least 23 people were killed and 49 others wounded Wednesday in three suicide car bomb attacks and clashes with the extremist Islamic State (IS) militant group in Iraq, security sources said.

One suicide car bomb attack occurred around noon when a bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a police checkpoint outside federal police headquarters near Nusour Square in Mansour district in the western part of Baghdad, leaving up to seven people dead and 19 others injured, a police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

In a separate incident, a suicide car bomber struck an army checkpoint in Yousifiyah area, some 25 km south of Baghdad, leaving six soldiers dead and wounding 20 people, a security source told Xinhua.

In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, the security forces backed by Shia militias and aircraft fought heavy clashes with the IS militants near a small dam in Udheim area, 130 km northeast of Baghdad, and seized the government compound near the dam in addition to two nearby villages, killing at least eight IS militants, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

During the battle near the dam, a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden military Humvee into an army convoy, leaving at least two soldiers dead and 10 others wounded, the source said.

The security situation in Iraq began to drastically deteriorate June 10, when bloody clashes broke out between the Iraqi security forces and the IS group which took control of the country's northern province of Nineveh.

Later, the IS seized swathes of territories after Iraqi security forces abandoned their posts in other predominantly Sunni provinces.