Senior officer killed, 4 soldiers wounded in Anbar blasts
Iraqi government forces are seen near the Falahat village west of Fallujah on June 27, 2016.
Iraqi forces took the Islamic State group’s last positions in the city of Fallujah on June 26, establishing full control over one of the jihadists’ most emblematic bastions after a month-long operation. / AFP PHOTO / MOADH AL-DULAIMI
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) A senior officer was killed and four soldiers were wounded in two separate blasts in Anbar on Friday, security sources were quoted saying.
An official security source told Shafa News that a senior border guard officer was killed when a bomb blast ripped through his convoy at the city of Rutba, near Iraq’s borders with Jordan. The officer was heading to his service unit, according to the source.
Meanwhile, a local source told Alsumaria News that an explosive device exploded in Shaqoufa, Hit, 70 kilometers west of Ramadi, wounding four police members.
Islamic State militants are still holding areas in western Anbar since 2014, when they occupied a third of Iraq to proclaim their self-styled “caliphate”. So far, there has not been a wide-scale campaign to retake those regions, but occasional offensives by government forces and allied Popular Mobilization Forces have managed to take over several surrounding villages.
The Iraqi government declared victory over Islamic State in Mosul, the group’s former capital in Iraq, in July, and said it was going to proceed towards other group holdouts, including Anbar. Government troops are currently battling Is out of Tal Afar, west of Nineveh.
Late July, Iraqi army warplanes reportedly dropped millions of messages on western Anbar telling locals that liberation offensives for the province were nearing, and advising them to stay away from militants’ deployments.
Anbar’s borders with Syria had seen occasional encounters between security forces and Islamic State militants.