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Sporadic clashes persist in Iraq's western province of Anbar

08 January 2014 19:02 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Normal life has gradually returned to the volatile city of Iraq's Fallujah on Wednesday, while sporadic clashes continued in Iraq's western province of Anbar, the provincial police and officials said, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Many government employees returned to their jobs and police stations reopened, while traffic policemen were deployed in the streets and intersections of the city, as sign of the return of normality in the city, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Masked gunmen from the local tribes can still be seen in several parts of the city, in particular at bridges and entrances at the edges of the city, the source said.

People in Fallujah, some 50 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, have witnessed cautious stability since late Tuesday after the tribesmen drove al-Qaida fighters out of their city and the news that the army will not attack the city, the source added.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki confirmed that his troops will not attack Fallujah as long as the tribes are fighting al-Qaida militants.

"We will not use force as long as the tribes announce their willingness to confront al-Qaida and eject them from Fallujah," Maliki said in his televised weekly speech.

"We don't want this city (Fallujah) to suffer any more, because it had enough wars and destruction," he said referring to the two major battles between the residents of the city and the U.S. troops in 2004, which caused severe destruction and mass killings to its people.

An official from the Iraqi Red Crescent told reporters that up to 13,000 families have fled Fallujah during the past few days due to shelling and fierce clashes that flared after Iraqi police dismantled an anti-government protest site outside Ramadi several days ago.

While elsewhere in the province, sporadic clashes continued in the provincial capital city of Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, between tribesmen backed by local police and groups of al-Qaida militants, the source said without giving further details.

Meanwhile, Iraqi army backed by helicopters in the morning battled al-Qaida militants in the town of Khaldiyah, some 80 km west of Baghdad, after the militants late on Tuesday took positions near a village outside the city and were first confronted by the local tribesmen who blew up a bridge to delay their movement, the source said, adding that the troops pushed the militants out to the nearby desert.

Separately, the Iraqiya state-run channel reported that a military chopper went down and its crew were killed in Anbar province due to technical fault.

The channel did not give further details about where exactly the incident occurred and the number of its crew.

The sporadic fights continue in Anbar province as the al-Qaida linked Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) called on the Sunni community not to lay down their weapons.

Sporadic clashes in Iraq's western province of Anbar entered the tenth day after tensions flared in the province when Iraqi police dismantled an anti-government protest site outside Ramadi.

The Sunnis have been carrying out a year-long protest, accusing the Shiite-led government of marginalizing them and its Shiite- dominated security forces of indiscriminately arresting, torturing and killing their sons.