Bomb kills police chief of Iraq’s troubled Anbar

BAGHDAD — A roadside bomb killed the police chief of Iraq's battleground province of Anbar Sunday, officials said, after the Pentagon expressed concern about a renewed offensive by jihadists in the area.

The attack came near the provincial capital of Ramadi, one of the few areas between Baghdad and the Syrian border not controlled by fighters loyal to the Islamic State group, provincial and police officials said.

A cameraman working for the police's media department was also killed in the attack while fighting raged in several districts around Ramadi.

"Major General Ahmed Saddag was killed by an IED [improvised explosive device] blast targeting his convoy this morning," Faleh Al Issawi, the deputy head of the provincial council, told AFP.

"The blast hit the convoy as it was passing through the Abu Risha district," just northwest of Ramadi, he said.

A senior police official in the province confirmed Saddag's death and said four other policemen were also wounded in the attack.

"The police chief was leading forces involved in an operation to retake Twei" from IS, Colonel Abdulrahman Al Janabi said.

He said clashes between government forces and the jihadists had erupted in the area on Saturday evening.

A cameraman named Imad Amer Lattufi who was accompanying Saddag in the operation was also killed by the blast, police said.

A Ramadi-based journalist described him as a brave reporter who had spent most of the year on the frontlines with federal forces battling jihadists across Anbar.

The Shiite-led government’s footprint is shrinking in the vast Sunni Arab-dominated province, which has borders with Jordan and Saudi Arabia as well as Syria, and has become a jihadist stronghold.

According to police and army officials, IS militants attacked on three fronts Sunday but gained no ground.

“Their attacks are continuous, this has been happening every day, we are at war,” said Janabi.

“We have lost one of our heroes today but this has just reinforced our troops’ determination to stand firm, they want to avenge his death now,” he said.

Some parts of Anbar, such as the city of Fallujah, have been under insurgent control since before the major jihadist offensive launched in June across five Iraqi provinces.

In recent weeks, ill-prepared federal army forces suffered major losses in Anbar and only retain control over parts of Ramadi, the country’s second largest dam in Haditha and a few other towns and bases.

On Friday, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel described the campaign against IS in Iraq as “difficult,” particularly in the western province of Anbar, saying the province “is in trouble”.