BAGHDAD, May 17 (Xinhua) -- Two Islamic State (IS) militants and a paramilitary Hashd Shaabi member were killed on Sunday in attacks in the province of Salahudin of Iraq, a provincial police source said.
A force from the provincial police clashed with IS militants group in a desert area in the western part of the province, leaving two IS militants killed and five policemen wounded, Mohammed al-Bazi told Xinhua.
The clash occurred as the force was participating in a major offensive launched in the morning to hunt down IS remnants in the desert and rugged areas in the provinces of Anbar, Salahudin and Nineveh as well as the border areas with Syria, according to a statement by the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command.
In a separate incident, one paramilitary Hashd Shaabi member was killed and three others were wounded, when a roadside bomb planted by IS militants detonated near the town of Tuz-Khrmato, some 90 km east of Salahudin's provincial capital Tikrit, Ali al-Husseini, a local paramilitary leader told Xinhua.
The blast took place when the Hashd Shaabi members were on their way to help secure and put out fires in wheat farms that were ignited by extremists earlier in the day.
The attacks came as the extremist IS militants have intensified their attacks on the security forces, including Hashd Shaabi forces, and civilians in the formerly IS-controlled Sunni provinces since the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, resulting in the killing and wounding of dozens.
The security situation in Iraq has been improving since Iraqi security forces fully defeated the IS militants across the country late in 2017.
However, IS remnants have since melted in urban areas or deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians. Enditem
