Iraqi soldiers killed 25 militants in an ambush southwest of Baghdad, the capital’s security spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan said.
Maan said the fighters were part of the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and were planning to attack an army base they had attempted to hit last week. Else where 19 people died in separate acts of violence.
The latest violence is part of a protracted surge in nationwide bloodshed that has left more than 2,400 people dead since the start of the year and sparked fears Iraq is slipping back into the all-out sectarian fighting that plagued it in 2006 and 2007.
