Iraqi forces kill over 70 Sunni militants

Iraqi security forces Saturday fought back attacks from Sunni groups across the country, killing over 70 militants, officials said.

Sunni militants, claiming to be from Islamic State (IS), attacked Haditha city, 200 km west of Baghdad in the western Anbar province, and the nearby strategic dam on the Euphrates river, Xinhua reported citing a provincial police source as saying.

Iraqi troops and some government-backed Sahwa paramilitary group fought back the attacks and killed over 40 militants, the source said.

In Jalawlaa city in the eastern province of Diyala, Kurdish security forces, known as Peshmerga, clashed with militant groups and retook control of a neighbourhood in southern Jalawlaa, killing 13 militants and arresting six others, the source said.

Also in the province, Iraqi security forces backed by volunteers clashed with Sunni militants who recently seized areas near Maqdadiyah city, about 100 km northeast of Baghdad, leaving six militants dead, a provincial police source said.

Three security members were killed and six others wounded in the clash.

Elsewhere, helicopter gunships pounded a house in Tuz-Khurmato, 180 km north of Baghdad, which is believed to be a safe house of Abu Suhaib, a leader of an IS militant group.

Abu Suhaib and 12 of his group members were killed, a police source said.

In a separate incident, a girl was killed and five civilians were wounded when a mortar round landed on a house in a village near Tuz-Khurmato, the source said.

Separately, clashes erupted between security forces and militant groups in the southern part of Anbar's provincial capital Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, leaving five militants dead, the source said.

Four people were killed and 19 others, including four children, wounded in artillery and mortar shelling on several neighbourhoods in the militant-seized city of Fallujah, 50 km west of Baghdad, a medical source from a city hospital said.