Baghdad, Jan 26 (IANS/EFE) At least 34 people, including 20 purported extremists, died Saturday in attacks across the western Iraqi province of Anbar, a police official said.
In one operation, the Iraqi army killed 20 combatants of the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, in the Anbar capital of Ramadi, and also destroyed a vehicle belonging to the rebel organisation.
The official said a civilian was killed and six others were wounded by indiscriminate bombing in the Abu Faraj area on the south side of Ramadi.
Elsewhere, 13 people died and another 23 were injured as a result of an artillery attack against the city of Fallujah, 50 km west of Baghdad, that city's general hospital said Saturday after admitting the wounded.
The security official said the attack was specifically a bombardment by the Iraqi army, which is battling the jihadists at several points around that province.
The cities of Anbar province, above all Ramadi and Fallujah, are being blasted by a series of attacts and skirmishes between Iraqi security forces backed by armed tribal groups, and rebels of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The clashes have left scores of dead and wounded, while another 140,000 people have fled the province fearing further violence, the United Nations said Friday.
--IANS/EFE
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