After withdrawal of Iraqi Security Forces on the iraqi-Syrian border militants advance to Baghdad 13

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Defence & Security News - Iraq

 
 
Friday, June 13, 2014 01:05 PM
 
After withdrawal of Iraqi Security Forces on the iraqi-Syrian border militants advance to Baghdad.
Iraqi security forces fought back insurgents' attempts to advance towards the country's eastern province of Diyala on Thursday, June 12, 2014, while Sunni militant groups continued their march towards the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
     
Iraqi security forces fought back insurgents' attempts to advance towards the country's eastern province of Diyala on Thursday, June 12, 2014, while Sunni militant groups continued their march towards the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
A man displays an Iraqi army jacket near the burnt vehicles belonging to Iraqi security forces at a checkpoint in east Mosul, one day after radical Sunni Muslim insurgents seized control of the city.
     

In Diyala, Iraqi security forces and the militants engaged in fierce clashes in a rural area near the villages of Tabaj, north of the provincial capital Baquba, killing two soldiers and three militants, a security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Sadeq al-Husseini, head of security committee in Diyala provincial council, said the Iraqi forces are preparing for counter attacks on insurgent positions in a militant-seized town of Sulaiman Beg in neighboring Salahudin province.

"The troops will storm the town from three directions after reinforcement troops joined the forces in Diyala and are now closing to Sulaiman Beg," Husseini said.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi army source rejected the reports that the security forces withdrew from their positions on the Iraqi- Syrian border in the volatile Sunni province of Anbar, saying that only one brigade left their positions near the city of Qaim, while the rest remained in the desert alongside the border with Syria.

Earlier, an Anbar provincial police source said the Iraqi army, police and border guards withdrew late Wednesday from their positions on the border with Syria near the city of Qaim, some 330 km northwest of Baghdad.

     
Iraqi security forces fought back insurgents' attempts to advance towards the country's eastern province of Diyala on Thursday, June 12, 2014, while Sunni militant groups continued their march towards the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
An Humvee belonging to Iraqi security forces engulfed in flames in Mosul, Iraq on Tuesday.
     
Also in the province, Sunni militants swept a major military base of the al-Mazraa, just west of the militant-controlled city of Fallujah, and seized large amounts of vehicles, weapons and ammunition after the army soldiers' sudden retreat, the source said.

The militants also seized the battlefield-town of Saqlawiyah after an overnight fighting with the government troops, and headed towards Baghdad, the source said.

In Salahudin province, Iraqi security forces in the city of Samarra were still fighting with militant groups, including the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant, an al-Qaida breakaway group in Iraq, local police source said.

In Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk, a Kurdish security source said the Kurdish forces took full control of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of Baghdad, after the Iraqi army withdrew from its military base in the area.