Iraqi major general among 15 killed attacking Qaeda

The Iraqi army was on high alert on Saturday following the deaths of at least 15 Iraqi military officers were killed in an ambush in the western Sunni Muslim-dominated province of Anbar.

Five senior Iraqi officers, including a major general, were among those killed in the attack.

Major General Mohammad al-Karoui and the other 14 all died in an assault on “a hideout of the al-Qaeda network” in Sunni-majority western Anbar province near the border with Syria, the sources said.

An Al Arabiya News Channel correspondent reported that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki had ordered troops to stage a security operation in the province and search for members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the al-Qaeda group operating in Iraq and Syria.

Around 35 people were wounded in the attack, the correspondent reported. A curfew has been declared in the Sharqat area in the Salah al-Din governorate.