Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited troops in Salah ad Din province, where he emphasized the need to permanently recapture the city of Baiji. Baiji has changed hands several times in the last year and its loss would be a great blow to the Islamic State militants. Shi’ite militiamen claim to control about 90 percent of the city currently, including the large refinery there. The actual situation is unknown.
The Turkish military said that their airstrikes killed 34 members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (P.K.K) at their camps in Iraq’s Qandil Mountains. Separately, the Iranian Minister of Interior, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, visited the guerillas stationed there only last week. It is unlikely that Baghdad approved either of these events.
Besides the 34 Kurdish guerrillas, at least 65 others were killed across Iraq. Seven more were wounded.
Militants executed 10 civilians in Mosul. Twenty prisoners escaped from a militant jail.
Five people were executed in Fallujah. Two of them were election commission staff members.
In Baiji, militants killed a police colonel and wounded four policemen during an attack on Sunday. Dozens of militants were killed in air strikes.
Thirty militants were killed during airstrikes on Daquq.
Security forces killed 16 militants and wounded three more in Garma.
In Saqlawiya, three militant teenagers were killed while trying to plant a bomb.
