BAGHDAD ( At Least 38 Dead in Clashes with Jihadists in Northern Iraq )

BAGHDAD – At least 38 people died Sunday, including 30 alleged members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, in clashes between Iraqi security forces and that jihadist group in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

According to what local police told Efe, the clashes in the capital of Nineveh province, some of the western districts of which are controlled by the ISIL, resumed Sunday morning and are still continuing.

Besides the Islamist fighters, eight civilians died and 15 were wounded in bombardments of the neighborhoods of Tamuz, Al Islah, Al Zarai, Al Saha and Yarmuk.

Mosul police said that at least five snipers are among the terrorists who were killed.

Iraqi forces managed to drive some militants out of portions of the neighborhoods they had controlled, but the ISIL – which has expanded its influence into several provinces around the country – still holds sway in significant parts of Mosul, and the army has sent reinforcements in to deal with them.

Over the past three days, dozens of ISIL fighters, as well as Iraqi police officers and soldiers, have been killed in Mosul.

Also on Sunday, at least 17 people, including five police officers, were killed and 65 others were wounded in a double bomb attack in front of the headquarters of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan in the city of Jalula, capital of the eastern Iraqi province of Diyala.

Police told Efe that a car bomb exploded next to the party’s offices and, when police arrived on the scene, a suicide bomber detonated the explosives he had strapped to his body.

Iraq is experiencing an increase in sectarian violence and terrorist attacks, which in 2013 killed more than 8,860 people, 7,818 of them civilians, according to a United Nations tally.