Sunni tribes rise against ISIL in northern Iraq

The Sunni tribes from Baiji and al-Shurqat districts also demolished a number of ISIL vehicles on Monday, while Iraqi army forces destroyed 15 ISIL vehicles in Beiji’s al-Zwiya district.
 
Reports say the ISIL’s advance has been slowed down as Iraqi military and volunteer forces have begun engaging militants on several fronts.
 
The volunteers in Salahuddin have been also stationed around holy Shia shrines in Samarra to repel militant attacks on the sites. Federal police have been also dispatched to the outskirts of the city to chase Takfiri terrorists in the area.
 
Elsewhere in Salahuddin, militants blew up a bridge linking the province to neighboring Kirkuk. Militants had earlier blown up a bridge that connected Ramadi to the capital Baghdad.
 
In the restive Anbar Province, the commander of Federal Army's 6th division, Major General Najm Abdullah al-Sudani, was killed in an ISIL mortar shelling in al-Karma district, east of Fallujah.
 
Al-Sudani is the highest-ranking Iraqi officer to fall victim to attacks carried out by the ISIL terrorists since their offensive began last month.
 
In the northern province of Nineveh, a senior Turkmen politician says ISIL militants have killed nearly 200 civilians from the ethnic minority and displaced more than 200,000 of the residents.
 
In the eastern province of Diyala, Iraqi troops have built a defensive wall around parts of the province to protect it against militant attacks.
 
The wall was set up in areas close to the small town of Adeim, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the capital Baghdad, which was seized by the ISIL terrorists after Iraqi security forces retreated from the area.
 
Meanwhile, Iraq’s Kurdish militia leader, Jabbar Yawar, accused the federal forces of launching airstrikes against residential areas near Kirkuk and his militias in Diyala Province and threatened to return fire to federal air force under the right of self-defense.
 
Off the battlefields, dozens of people were killed and injured in a car bomb explosion which targeted a security checkpoint in Kazimiyah district of the capital Baghdad on Monday.
 
Also on Monday, a key session of Iraq's parliament to vote on choosing the new government was adjourned to August 12, after parties' representatives failed to reach a unified stance over the structure of the next government.