Isil militants kill 17 in town near Baghdad

Baghdad: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) militants attacked a riverside town north of Baghdad on Monday with gunboats and a car bomb, killing 17 people and wounding 54, a security source said.

The source said the attack on Dhuluiya, around 70km from the capital, was carried out before dawn and continued for two hours before the militants were pushed back.

Among the dead in the attack, the largest of its kind in the area, were civilians and Iraqi forces. Most of the casualties were caused by the car bomb, which struck a market, the source said.

Dhuluiya is part of a belt of Sunni towns north of Baghdad where Isil has managed to wrestle some control.

US President Barack Obama ordered air strikes in northern Iraq last month as Kurdish-controlled territory fell to Isil and the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan looked in danger. These have since spread to central Iraq.

A tribal source near the Kurdish city of Kirkuk said Iraqi Air Force jets bombed two areas near the town of Hawijah, killing 14 civilians in Isil-controlled territory.