BAQUBA, Iraq, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Three suspected Islamic State (IS) militants were killed and three others wounded on Sunday in clashes with Iraqi security forces in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, provincial officials said.
On Sunday morning, the army forces and allied Sunni tribal fighters clashes with a group of militants at a joint outpost at a village in north of the volatile town of Maqdadiyah, some 100 km northeast of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, Adnan al-Timimi, head of Diyala's provincial council, said in a statement.
The heavy clash left at least two militants killed and three others wounded, Timimi said.
Separately, the Sunni tribal units fought back militants who attacked their outpost in the early morning in Shirween area in east of the provincial capital city of Baquba, a member of the provincial council, told reporters.
The clash in Shirween resulted in the killing of one militant and the capture of another, Jubouri said.
The extremist IS militants frequently attack the urban areas of the province using the sprawling rugged area in northwestern Diyala, which also extends to the main IS redoubt in Mteibijah at the provincial border line with the neighboring Salahudin province.
The incident came as Iraqi security forces, backed by the anti-IS international coalition, were simultaneously conducting a major offensive to dislodge IS militants from their major stronghold in western Mosul in northern Iraq.
