Bomb attacks rock Baghdad as Iraqi forces battle IS militants near Ramadi

BAGHDAD, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- At least seven people were killed and 15 injured in a series of bomb attacks across Baghdad on Sunday, while clashes between the Islamic State and Iraqi security forces continued in Anbar province.

Two people were killed and seven injured when a bomb exploded near shops in the Allawi area in central Baghdad, a source with Iraq's interior ministry told IraqiNews.com.

Another explosion in central Baghdad's al-Kifah Street killed one person and injured eight others, the ministry said.

A roadside bomb, also known as an "improvised explosive device," detonated in the Arab Jabour area south of the capital, police told IraqiNews.com, killing two soldiers and injuring another two as a patrol passed by.

Police also told IraqiNews.com a bomb placed underneath a vehicle in the al-Mahmoudiyah district of southern Baghdad killed two men in a passing car.

The wave of bombings came after Iraqi police on Friday said a suicide bombing targeted a wedding at a mosque in the al-Amel district southwest of Baghdad, killing 17 people and injuring another 35.

Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces and U.S.-led coalition aircraft are being credited with killing multiple suicide car bombers in the Anbar province, west of Baghdad, before they could reach their targets.

Xinhua news agency, quoting a provincial security source, on Sunday reported Iraqi troops and allied Shia paramilitary fighters used anti-tank guided missiles to destroy two suicide car bombers in the Albu Farraj area north of Ramadi, the IS-held provincial capital.

Xinhua also reported coalition airstrikes destroyed two car bombers en route to attack positions in Anbar's Jeraishi area. Additionally, the source said, coalition warplanes conducted a strike against IS positions in the town of Khaldiyah, near Ramadi, killing 13 militants.

The U.S. Department of Defense released a statement on Sunday saying coalition aircraft conducted 12 airstrikes in Iraq, including four near Ramadi that destroyed 10 IS fighting positions as well as a weapons cache, two buildings, a command and control center and a vehicle-borne bomb used by the militants.

Shaker Mahmoud al-Issawi, the mayor of the Anbar province town of Amiriyat al-Fallujah, on Sunday told IraqiNews.com that IS shelling on residences and schools in the town injured at least 22 people, including students, while a provincial security source told Xinhua the attack also killed three police officers.

The day prior, Naeem Kawood, leader of the Al Bu Nimr tribe, which has long suffered heavy casualties battling IS forces, told IraqiNews.com his fighters, with help from the Iraqi army's 7th Division and other anti-IS clans, destroyed an IS headquarters in the Albu Hayat area of the city of Haditha, west of Ramadi, killing about 250 IS fighters and destroying 15 vehicles used by the militants.

Dozens of people were killed last week during continuing clashes with IS forces across the country as the Iraqi military gathered reinforcements and armored vehicles in the areas surrounding Ramadi. In preparation for an impending Iraqi military counter-attack, coalition forces have been conducting airstrikes in and around the city, which fell to IS in May.

Sunday's violence comes two days after more than 7,000 Kurdish peshmerga fighters, backed by U.S. airstrikes, re-captured the city of Sinjar, in northern Iraq's Nineveh province, killing up to 100 IS militants and cutting off vital supply routes used by the group.