BAQUBA, Iraq, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- A total of five Islamic State (IS) militants were killed and another one wounded on Friday in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a provincial security source said.
A police force and paramilitary Sunni tribal fighters raided a hideout of IS militants in a village near the town of Jalawlaa, some 130 km northeast of the capital Baghdad, killing three IS militants, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
In a separate incident, Kurdish security forces and tribal fighters clashed with IS militants near Jalawlaa, killing two of them and wounding a third before they captured him, the source said.
The IS militants frequently attack the urban areas in Diyala by using the orchards near the villages and the sprawling rugged area in northern and northwestern Diyala, which also extends to the main IS redoubt in Mteibijah area lying between Diyala and the northern central province of Salahudin.
Many blame the current chronic instability, cycle of violence, and the emergence of extremist groups, such as the IS, on the United States, which invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003.
