Iraqi strike on Tikrit kills 7 as clashes continue

An air strike on the militant-controlled Iraqi city of Tikrit killed at least seven people on Sunday, as the authorities seek to stem a swift Sunni militant offensive.

The air strike, reported by state television and witnesses, comes after a sweeping advance earlier this month in which Sunni militants including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) overran a swathe of territory north of Baghdad, including Tikrit.

State television said the strike targeted a group of militants and killed 40 of them, while witnesses told AFP the attack hit a petrol station in the centre of the city, which is the capital of Salaheddin province north of Baghdad.

The witnesses said seven people were killed, but did not know whether the casualties were fighters.

Iraq’s security forces, which wilted in the face of the initial onslaught by abandoning their posts, appear to have recovered in the past few days.

Fifteen ISIL militants were killed amid clashes between the group and the Iraqi army in the eastern province of Diyala late on Saturday.

The militants affiliated with the ISIL were killed during a joint operation launched by the Iraqi army and the city police, the commander of Diyala Police Department, Brigadier Jamil al-Shimari, told the Anadolu Agency.

One soldier was killed, and dozens of soldiers and police officers were injured during the clashes, according to security sources.

Earlier Saturday, ISIL-led militants took control of Rawa and Anah, two towns in the western province of Anbar, the same sources said, adding that the militants faced no resistance after the Iraqi army troops pulled out of the region.

Since 10 June, militants led by ISIL and a number of other groups such as loyalists of Saddam Hussein seized Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, and soon afterwards took near-complete control of the northern Iraq’s cities of Tikrit and Tal Afar.

The United States has offered up to 300 military advisers to help Iraq stem the tide, but has stopped short of acceding to Baghdad's request for air strikes, calling instead for more inclusive leadership by the Shiite-led government.

The crisis has alarmed the international community, with the United Nations warning that it was "life-threatening for Iraq".