WILAYAH NEWS VOICE OF THE GLOBAL AWAKENING
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Twenty-eight people have been killed in a fresh bout of violence in Iraq, with the latest mortalities taking the death toll for January to over 800.
At least eight people, including a young child, were killed in a shelling that began late on Friday in Fallujah’s southern neighborhood of Nazal and continued into the early hours of Saturday.
Locals blame the army for the shelling, but defense officials have rejected the accusation.
In the fresh wave of violence on Saturday, militants blew up a key bridge linking the capital, Baghdad, to the north.
Meanwhile, fighting is also raging on between al-Qaeda-linked militants and the army in the western province of Anbar, where security officials said 20 militants were killed near the provincial capital of Ramadi.
Fallujah and parts of Ramadi have been in the center of heavy battles for weeks between government soldiers and militants from the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Fighting erupted in the Ramadi area on December 30, when security forces cleared a protest camp, which the government said was being used by militants for launching terrorist attacks.
The removal of the camp sparked protests from Iraqi lawmakers who urged the army to leave the city.
But the withdrawal of government forces from the city paved the way for ISIL militants to move in and seize the provincial capital and the neighboring city of Fallujah.
On January 18, Iraq’s Afaq TV aired confessions of a number of the ISIL militants admitting to have relations with and taking orders from Saudi Arabia.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over 140,000 people have left their homes amid raging clashes in Anbar Province.
Source: Press TV