ANBAR
At least 20 people, including 16 alleged Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants were killed in Iraq, security officials said Saturday.
Iraqi security forces backed by tribal fighters repelled ISIL militants Saturday in Ramadi city, the capital of Anbar province, in western Iraq, police said.
“Ten ISIL militants were killed and four Iraqi policemen were severely wounded when ISIL militants attacked a government building in central Ramadi,” Colonel Hamid Shandoukh, Anbar province’s police station directorate, told AA.
This is ISIL’s second attack on the same governmental building within 12 hours. In an earlier statement, Shandoukh said six ISIL militants and two policemen were killed in clashes Thursday evening.
Also, Abdur-Razek al-Delimi, a tribal chief in Anbar, told AA Saturday that al-Hashid al-Sha’bi, a Shia volunteer militia, allegedly killed two civilians at a military base in northern Ramadi. The militia allegedly captured Hasan al-Jabri and Wesam al-Matiran al-Jabri in Ramadi, and accused them of belonging to the ISIL terrorist group. Al-Delimi said the victims were in fact innocent civilians.
On Feb. 4, displaced Iraqi Sunnis from Diyala and Saladin provinces protested in front of the American consulate in Erbil province demanding support against Shia militias and ISIL attacks on Sunni civilians.
Last summer, ISIL captured large swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, killing thousands in the process. It later declared the captured territories to be part of a self-styled caliphate.
Since the group captured the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in June 2014, a U.S.-led coalition has carried out numerous airstrikes against ISIL targets in both Iraq and Syria.
