At least 61 members of the Islamic State militant group were killed in US-led airstrikes and clashes with Iraqi security forces in Iraq on Saturday, while security forces freed a small town as they are advancing to recapture a major city in Anbar province from the ISIS, security sources said.
In northern Iraq, international coalition aircraft pounded in the morning ISIS redoubts at Ashiq village near the ISIS-held city of Tal Afar, which is located some 70 km west of Nineveh's provincial capital Mosul, leaving at least 11 ISIS militants dead and eight others wounded, a Kurdish security source told Xinhua news agency.
US-led coalition warplanes also attacked ISIS positions at a village near the militant-seized town of Qaiyara, some 50 km south of Mosul, destroying four ISIS vehicles and killing 16 militants, the source said.
In Salahudin province, Iraqi security forces and allied militias repelled an attack by ISIS militants on Allas oilfield in Himreen area in the eastern part of the province after fierce clashes with the militants who started their overnight attack with a car bombing and heavy machine guns, a provincial security source told Xinhua.
The ISIS ended their attack in the morning after they failed to gain a foothold at the oilfield, leaving two of their vehicles destroyed and at least three of their militants dead and three others wounded, the source added.
Also in the province, security forces and militias known as Hashd Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) clashed with ISIS militants in the partially ISIS-held oil refinery of Baiji, some 200 km north of Iraq's capital Baghdad, the source said.
The battle in Baiji refinery came after security forces managed to enter Iraq's largest oil refinery late on Thursday and broke the siege of more than 300 security personnel who have been surrounded by ISIS militants inside the refinery after the extremist militants gained ground there earlier in the month.
The fall of most of the refinery into the hands of IS militants and the siege of troops, made the Iraqi government on Tuesday to dispatch reinforcement troops, backed by tanks and armoured vehicles, to retake full control of the huge oil refinery and the nearby town of Baiji.