BAGHDAD
An Iraqi was killed and two others were critically injured on Sunday in Iraq's violence-ridden city of Fallujah during a shelling by the military, a spokesman for the organizing committee of an anti-government protest camp in the city said.
The army shelled a number of houses in the early hours of Sunday in eastern Fallujah districts, killing one and injuring two others, Mohamed al-Bagari told Anadolu Agency.
He went on to add that the shelling prompted clashes between armed tribesmen and military forces on an eastern highway in the city.
Elsewhere in the western province of Anbar, chieftain of the Boufahd tribe Abdel-Karim al-Fahdawi told AA that clashes are yet ongoing for the fifth day between local tribesmen backed by police forces and Iraqi air force on one side and al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant group on the other.
Al-Fahdawi, however, expected the ISIL to retreat due to the heavy losses the group inflicted in the gunfights.
For over two weeks the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in the predominantly Sunni province have seen violent clashes between security forces and al-Qaeda affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) which had claimed control over swaths parts of the two cities.
On Friday, the United Nations Security Council released a statement backing the Iraqi government in its confrontation with the militant group and urged tribal and local leaders to cooperate with security forces in resisting the group.
The province has been rocked by violent clashes that broke out after Iraqi security forces dismantled a months-old anti-government sit-in outside Ramadi in late December. Until Thursday, death toll from the clashes reached a least 57, according to latest medical and tribal sources. Around 300 were also injured.
The sit-in dispersal came two days after Sunni lawmaker Ahmed al-Alwani, a prominent opponent of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, was arrested by Iraqi forces during a raid on his Ramadi home. Six people were killed in the raid, including al-Alwani's brother.
By Aref Youssef
englishnews@aa.com.tr
