Jihadists capture part of western Iraq town

RAMADI, Oct 3 (agencies): The Islamic State group captured parts of the town of Heet, one of the last pro-government bastions in Iraq's western Anbar province, police sources said Friday.
The jihadists used two suicide car bombs to launch a massive attack on Heet's police headquarters Thursday, sparking clashes in which 20 of them were killed, as well 11 members of the security forces.
"The gunmen came back today and attacked several areas. They clashed with the security forces and they now control three neighbourhoods in the city," one police officer said.
"They have raised the black flag on several buildings that police withdrew from and set fire to five police stations," he said.
Another police officer said pro-government forces still controlled most of Heet, including the roads leading northwest to Syria and east to Tikrit.
According to an army officer, security forces killed 12 gunmen hiding in houses and sporadic fighting continued Friday afternoon.
The commander of Anbar's 7th infantry division, Major General Qassem al-Mahalawi, said reinforcements were on their way to prevent the fall of Heet, about 150 kilometres (95 miles) west of Baghdad.
"We sent back-up of 50 armoured vehicles to retake the area controlled by IS within a few hours," he told AFP.
Meanwhile:  Islamic State fighters blew up a key bridge on Friday in Iraq's Salaheddin province as they retreated in the face of an offensive by pro-government forces, officials said.
Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga forces and Shiite militias have been pushing west from the city of Tuz Khurmatu since Thursday.
"At 5:00 am (0200 GMT), peshmerga and Iraqi forces attacked several areas, going from Tuz Khurmatu towards Tikrit, to reach Zerga bridge, a strategic link between the two," Mullah Karim Shukur, a senior official in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party, said.
"During this advance, retreating IS forces blew up the bridge and left dozens of bodies behind," he said.
Shallal Abdul, the mayor of Tuz Khurmatu, said five villages had been wrested back from the jihadists on Thursday and four more on Friday before reaching the bridge over a tributary of the Tigris.
"They are going to retake all the areas under IS control, they fled leaving bodies behind," he told AFP.
Tikrit, executed former president Saddam Hussein's hometown, has been under IS control since the first days of the major offensive the jihadists launched in Iraq four months ago.
The Iraqi army has tried and failed to recapture it several times.
Security sources said warplanes carried out strikes on IS targets north of Tuz Khurmatu, near Taza, on Friday.
Turkey's parliament authorized the government on Thursday to order military action against Islamic State as the insurgents tightened their grip on a Syrian border town, sending thousands more Kurdish refugees into Turkey.
Meanwhile: Activists and Kurdish fighters say fierce clashes are underway near a Syrian Kurdish town along the border with Turkey as the Islamic State group presses its assault to capture Kobani.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported intense fighting on Friday to the east and southeast of Kobani, saying the town's Kurdish fighters destroyed two vehicles belonging to the militants.
 Nasser Haj Mansour, a defense official in Syria's Kurdish region, says the Kurdish militiamen repelled the latest attack by the Islamic State group east of Kobani and destroyed one tank.