Baghdad: As many as 49 people were killed and 69 wounded Monday in a wave of violent attacks witnessed across Iraq, including battles with insurgent groups in Anbar province, security and medical sources said.
In Anbar province, fierce clashes erupted between Iraqi forces and gunmen in the militant-seized Fallujah city, some 50 km from Baghdad, leaving 19 militants killed and 20 wounded, Xinhua quoted provincial police as saying.
The gunmen were believed to be linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), an Al Qaeda breakaway group in Iraq.
Six people were killed and 15 wounded by artillery and mortar shelling on several neighbourhoods in Fallujah and the nearby town of Saqlawiya, a hospital source said.
Also in the province, a fierce battle between a joint police and army force with gunmen in Ramadi city, 110 km from Baghdad, left 10 gunmen killed and four policemen wounded.
In another incident, suspected ISIL gunmen clashed with a force linked with protecting the provincial governor in the Ramadi, killing three of the governor’s guards and wounding as many, the source said. The governor was not present there.
In Baghdad, three civilians’ bodies, bearing gunshot wounds, were found in Kadmiyah district, an interior ministry source said.
In Salahudin province, a suicide bomber killed four people — two soldiers and two civilians — and injured three by blowing up an explosive-laden car at an army checkpoint in Baiji, some 200 km from Baghdad.
Separately, a police chief and two of his bodyguards were inured when a roadside bomb struck their convoy in Baiji, the source said. Two civilians were also wounded in a separate bomb explosion in Baiji.
Also in the province, a soldier was shot dead by gunmen at a marketplace in Shirqat city, the source added.
Another soldier was killed and two were wounded when two roadside bombs went off in quick succession in Mosul city. Elsewhere, a soldier was killed and 10 wounded in a roadside bomb explosion near their patrol in a desert road in Jurf al-Sakhar area, some 50 km from Baghdad.
Also, a civilian was killed and seven injured when a roadside bomb detonated near a police station in Mahmoudiyah town, some 30 km from Baghdad, police said.