US-led coalition helps repel attack on Iraq town
BAGHDAD -- The US-led coalition says airstrikes destroyed five ISIS vehicles and killed a "significant" number of militants amid coalition efforts to help Iraqi forces repel an attack on the western town of Rutba.
Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition, said on Monday that ISIS fighters had infiltrated the town in the latest in a series of "spoiler attacks" to divert attention from the northern city of Mosul, where Iraq is conducting a wide-scale offensive.
He says the Iraqi forces "responded and continue attacking the enemy with coalition air support," adding that "operations are ongoing."
Iraqi Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, the spokesman for the Joint Military Command, says ISIS attacked Rutba on Sunday, but that the situation there "is completely under control," and ISIS militants have no presence inside the town.
The ISIS-run Aamaq news agency posted a video online that it said showed fighters attacking a military position on Sunday north of Rutba, which is hundreds of kilometers from Mosul, in the western Anbar province.
