At least 58 ISIL militants killed in Iraq

ANBAR, Iraq 

At least 58 militants were killed in Iraq during the last 24 hours in clashes with Iraqi security forces and U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, authorities said Wednesday.

All the militants were said to be affiliated with the extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.

At least 30 militants were killed and 30 others were wounded in clashes with Iraqi security forces in Fallujah’s Al Amiriyah district, Mahmood Shakir, the regional parliament speaker told The Anadolu Agency.

Shakir said the Iraqi security forces had succeeded in repulsing an ISIL attack and also inflicted huge losses on their enemy.

Separately, the U.S.-led coalition airstrikes killed at least 11 ISIL militants and injured 52 others in areas near the Mosul Dam.

The Kurdish peshmerga forces said the coalition airplanes had struck ISIL strongholds in Mosul.

The Iraqi army also claimed killing 17 ISIL militants in Tikrit, General Abdulwahhab es-Saidi, commander of operations in Salahuddin province told The Anadolu Agency. He said the attack was carried out with air support.

The fight between the Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga forces on one side and the ISIL militants on the other has been ongoing in Iraq since mid June, when the group took control of Mosul, the second largest city in the country.

The U.S. is leading an international coalition, including France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia, that carries out airstrikes on ISIL targets in Iraq and Syria.

The ISIL is now said to be in control of large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.

According to the UN, an estimated 1.8 million citizens have been internally displaced this year throughout Iraq. 

www.aa.com.tr/en