Militants have closed down a Euphrates River dam they control in Iraq, blocking a major water source, with another 15 people killed in violence across the war-torn nation.
Militants have "completely closed the gates of the Fallujah dam since yesterday morning," Water Resources Minister Muhanad al-Saadi said on Monday in a statement.
The move blocks a major source of water for central and southern Iraq.
The militants, who seized the dam several weeks ago, had previously cut the flow of water through the dam near the city of Fallujah but reopened it when water accumulated and caused the area to flood.
In a sign of both the reach of anti-government fighters and the weakness of security forces, all of Fallujah and shifting parts of Anbar provincial capital Ramadi, to its west, have been out of government control since early January.
The US embassy issued a statement on Monday condemning "ongoing terrorist acts" by powerful jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and the dam closure in particular.
"Targeting dams and other vital infrastructure victimises innocent Iraqi citizens. In the past week, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have suffered from water shortages as a result of ISIL's actions," the embassy said.
Meanwhile, shelling and shoulder-fired rockets killed two people and wounded seven in Fallujah, while clashes in Ramadi left five militants dead.
Bombings in three areas close to Baghdad killed five people, among them two Sahwa anti-al-Qaeda militiamen, and wounded nine.
And north of the capital, a firebomb thrown at a checkpoint killed a policeman in the city of Tikrit, while gunmen killed a Kurdish security forces member and a civilian in Kirkuk.
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