Five IS militants killed in attacks in central Iraq

A joint force from the Iraqi army and paramilitary tribal fighters clashed early in the morning with IS militants who attempted to set fire to wheat and barley farms in Shirqat area, some 280 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Mohammed al-Bazi, from Salahudin's provincial police, told Xinhua.

The clash resulted in the killing of two tribal fighters and one IS militant, al-Bazi said, adding that the attackers fled the scene while the security forces launched a search operation in the surrounding area.

Also in the province, IS militants attacked a group of farmers who were harvesting wheat in the village of Tulul al-Baj, some 250 km north of Baghdad, killing four farmers and setting fire in their farm and their harvester machine before they fled the scene, al-Bazi said.

Furthermore, a policeman was killed and three others wounded when a roadside bomb detonated near their vehicle while on patrol in western the town of Baiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad, al-Bazi added.

Separately, a paramilitary Hashd Shaabi force, backed by the army helicopter gunships, destroyed a tunnel and killed four would-be suicide bombers inside in Shirqat area, Yahya Rasoul, spokesman of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement.

Recently, the extremist IS militants frequently pursued a tactic of collecting taxes from farmers or killing them and burning their farms and corps in agricultural areas across the provinces of Salahudin, Nineveh, Diyala and Kirkuk.

The security situation in Iraq was dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist IS militants across the country late in 2017.

IS remnants, however, have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas as safe havens, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.