RAMADI, Iraq, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Three people were killed and three others wounded on Saturday in a bomb explosion during a funeral near the city of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's western province of Anbar, a provincial security source told Xinhua.
The blast occurred in the morning when a roadside bomb went off near mourners at a funeral of a woman in Albu Ali al-Jasim area in north of Ramadi, which itself located some 110 km west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the source said on condition of anonymity.
Iraqi security forces sealed off the area and launched an investigation and a search operation at the scene, the source said.
No group has so far claimed the attack, but the Islamic State (IS) group, in most cases, is responsible for deadly attacks targeting Iraqi security forces as well as crowded areas, including markets, cafes and mosques across the country.
Earlier, the Iraqi security forces dislodged IS militants from the key cities of Anbar province, including Ramadi and the nearby Fallujah, but the areas near the border with neighboring Syria, including Aana, Rawa and al-Qaim as well as the vast rural areas across the province are still under the control of the extremist IS militants.
On July 10, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi officially declared Mosul's liberation from IS after nearly nine months of fierce fighting to dislodge the extremist militants from their last major stronghold in Iraq.
Abadi has declared a new plan to be implemented soon to liberate the IS-held town of Tal Afar, some 70 km west of Mosul, from the extremist militants, which will include the participation of the predominantly Shiite paramilitary Hashd Shaabi units and Sunni tribal fighters.
The Iraqi forces still have to wage more offensives to drive out IS militants from their redoubts in Hawijah in southwestern Kirkuk, the adjacent sprawling rugged areas in eastern Salahudin province, in addition to the remaining IS strongholds in the border towns with Syria in western Anbar province.
Many blame the current chronic instability, cycle of violence, and the emergence of extremist groups, such as the IS, on the U.S., which invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003, under the pretext of seeking to destroy weapons of mass destruction in the country.
The war led to the ouster and eventual execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but no such weapons have been found.
