BAGHDAD, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- A total of three policemen were killed and two others injured on Wednesday in an attack by Islamic State (IS) militants in a border area in Iraq's western province of Anbar, a local official said.
The extremist IS militants carried out the attack at about 2:00 a.m. local time (2300 GMT Tuesday) on an outpost manned by Iraqi soldiers and policemen in al-Obeidi area near the town of al-Qaim, some 450 km west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, mayor of al-Qaim Ahmed al-Dulaimi told Xinhua.
The attack resulted in the killing of three policemen in addition to the wounding of an army officer and a policeman, al-Dulaimi said.
Moreover, al-Dulaimi called on the government to conduct preemptive military operations in the desert areas surrounding al-Qaim, as they became shelters for IS militants who are carrying out attacks against the security forces.
IS militants are still active in the vast Anbar desert which stretches to the border with neighboring countries of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, as small groups or individuals of IS militants frequently tried to infiltrate into Iraq from neighboring Syria through the roughly 600 km long border with vast rugged areas and desert land in an attempt to regroup in Iraq.
The security situation in Iraq has been dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces declared full liberation of Iraq from IS militants late in 2017, and the Iraqi forces repeatedly carry out operations to control the whole border areas with Syria and nearby desert in western Iraq. Enditem
