Baghdad: Daesh terrorists detonated a car bomb and then opened fire on Iraqi troops in the western province of Anbar on Thursday, killing 14 soldiers, security sources said.
Iraqi government forces and their Shiite militia allies are hoping to recapture Anbar’s provincial capital Ramadi, which was seized by the ultra-hardline terrorist group last month.
Daesh swept through northern Iraq last year and has since taken control of a third of the country, a major oil producer and OPEC member. It also holds large swathes of Syria.
Twenty seven soldiers were also wounded in Thursday’s attack in Anbar’s Nadheem Al Taqseem region.
In the town of Hit, west of Ramadi, artillery fire and rocket attacks targeted the local irrigation department, killing nine people and wounding 13.
The presence of Daesh terrorists has fueled a sectarian civil war.
Iraq’s army relies on US-led air strikes and a Shiite umbrella fighting group known as Hashd Al Shaabi, or popular mobilisation committee, in its bid to a slow the advance of Daesh.
Kurdish fighters in the north are also seen as a critical force in the battle against Daesh.
