Ramadi

Five members of an organized crime ring, including its Iraqi leader, were detained in an operation conducted by Istanbul police on May 9. Three of them were arrested by court later on.

Islamic State militants attacked on Wednesday several positions held by Iraqi forces in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, killing at least 7 soldiers and wounding 16, according to a preliminary toll from security sources, quoted by Reuters. 

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and other top officials in unannounced visits to Baghdad and Arbil on April 28 to show support for a government battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) amid political and economic crises. 

Explosives planted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have killed dozens of Iraqi civilians who returned to Ramadi despite warnings that much of the western city remains unsafe nearly four months after its recapture from the militants. 

Iraqi police on April 19 unearthed two mass graves in the western city of Ramadi, with bodies of about 40 people killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants during the militant Sunni group's reign of terror in the city, officials said.

Iraqi forces retook the town of Hit from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on April 14 after weeks of fighting, the military said, the latest in a series of losses for the jihadists.
 
"Units from the Counter-Terrorism Service completely liberated Hit," Iraq's Joint Operations Command said in a statement.
 

Iraq's counter-terrorism forces backed by army troops and U.S.-led coalition air strikes advanced towards the western town of Hit on March 31, in an attempt to dislodge the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, the military said.

Iraqi forces retook a town from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the Anbar province on March 10 and evacuated 10,000 civilians as they advanced up the Euphrates valley, a security spokesman said. 

Iraq said on Feb. 9 that its forces have completely retaken areas surrounding Ramadi from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and reopened the road linking the city to Baghdad.

Iraqi forces have found more than 40 bodies, including those of women and children, in a mass grave in the city of Ramadi west of Baghdad, which they recently retook from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, officials said.