Angry mourners carry the coffin of a victim of an ISIS-claimed suicide attack in the southern Iraqi city of Samawah on May 1. |
(New4News911)-Iraqi security forces and Sunni tribal fighters killed 10 ISIS militants in an hours-long clash Saturday, security sources said.
The incident occurred in Amiriyat al-Falluja in Anbar province -- a town more than nine miles, or 15 kilometers, south of city of Falluja.
Security sources said the attackers came from inside the town and were operating as sleeper cells.
Two security officers and two tribal fighters were killed and seven others were injured during the clashes, security sources said.
The fighting is the latest ISIS-claimed strike in a particularly bloody week in Iraq. On Friday, three militants gunned gunned down people in a coffee shop in Balad and killed at least 20 people.
On Thursday, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a police station in western Baghdad, killing three police officers and injuring 10 others, authorities said.
On Wednesday, more than 90 people were killed in suicide bombings in two largely Shiite neighborhoods in one of the bloodiest days in Baghdad this year. One strike involved a suicide car bombing in Sadr City that killed 64 people and the other was a suicide bombing in al-Jamia, killing 17.
The Saturday attack was reported by ISIS-affiliated news outlet Amaq. It said Islamic State forces carried out a large-scale attack on Amiriyat al-Falluja.
Security sources told CNN that the strike began when 10 ISIS fighters, most wearing suicide vests, attacked a residential complex in the town. Security forces killed all of the attackers, including five shielding themselves in a mosque.
Authorities in Amriyat al-Falluja declared a full curfew and and security forces were on high alert, searching for other possible sleeper cells.