The News Minute| (IANS/EFE)| September 4, 2014| 5.40 pm IST 

At least 22 members of the Islamic State (IS) Sunni militant group were killed in US air strikes in a town bordering Syria, an Iraqi official said Thursday.

The dead included several foreign extremists and IS leaders, security official Mohamed Ibrahim al-Bayati said.

The air strikes were carried out in Rabea town, 110 km west of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, which has been in the hands of the IS militants since June.

A medical source said that IS fighters moved several bodies to a hospital in the province, but did not allow the doctors to approach the victims.

Iraqi military aircraft were also flying over Mosul, but had so far not carried out any strikes as they did Wednesday when a former police headquarters and a civilian home were hit, killing three women.