Vote count continues in Iraq amid violence, Fallujah shelling

Violence in Iraq, including shootings, a suicide attack and the shelling of a militant-held city, killed 16 people Saturday as officials continued to tally votes from last month's parliamentary election.

The bloodshed is part of the worst protracted surge in unrest since a brutal Sunni-Shiite sectarian war killed tens of thousands in 2006 and 2007, sparking fears Iraq may be slipping back into all-out conflict.

Shelling in Fallujah, which has been held by anti-government fighters for more than four months, killed 11 people and wounded 20, according to Dr Ahmed Shami of the city's main hospital.

The casualties come a day after Iraqi forces launched an operation to retake areas near the city, which lies just a short drive west of Baghdad, in preparation for an eventual assault.

Security forces claimed to have killed 50 militants in a series of operations around Fallujah Saturday, according to interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan, who added that they had also destroyed several insurgent hideouts.

For months, the authorities have trumpeted wide-ranging anti-militant operations, insisting they are making an impact, and have been quick to blame external factors such as the civil war in neighbouring Syria for the rise in bloodshed.

But analysts and diplomats say the Shiite-led government must also do more to reach out to the disaffected Sunni minority in order to undermine support for militancy.

The crisis in the desert province, which shares a long border with Syria, erupted in late December when security forces dismantled a longstanding protest camp maintained by the province's mainly Sunni Arab population to vent their grievances against the government.

Militants subsequently seized parts of provincial capital Ramadi and all of Fallujah, the first time anti-government forces have exercised such open control in major cities since the peak of the deadly violence that followed the US-led invasion of 2003.

Elsewhere Saturday, a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle at a checkpoint in the town of Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad, killing at least three people.

And separate shootings in the northern province of Nineveh killed two others.

The Iraqi army said it managed to clear two areas in the western Fallujah city of the militant Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL).

"Army units started carrying out a major operation in the al-Fallahat and al-Sobeihat districts in western Fallujah and managed to clear the two areas of ISIL militants," military source in the Anbar Operations Command told Anadolu Agency Saturday on condition of anonymity.

He, however, did not give details about casualties.

Also on Saturday, the defence ministry said that the three militants had been arrested during a security operation in Anbar's western quarter.

Many local Sunni tribes opposed to Iraq's Shiite-dominated government, meanwhile, continue to voice anger over the operation's mounting civilian death toll.

Since the offensive began last December, hundreds have been killed and injured in Fallujah and Ramadi, according to government officials.