Iraqi police and army forces have freed 25 hostages and killed their seven abductors in the western part of the country on Monday.
The joint force entered the police headquarters in al-Baghdadi area, around 160 kilometres west of Baghdad, to free the hostages taken by a group of gunmen earlier in the day, police sources told dpa.
Initially a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of the front gate of the compound, which also houses the town's provincial council, leaving several people dead and injured, sources said earlier.
The armed group then broke into the police station and took a number of people hostages, including senior police officers.
"Now, everything is under control of Iraqi forces inside the compound," the source said.
Al-Baghdadi area is located inside al-Anbar province, where Sunni extremists were the dominant force after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. In 2006 many of the local tribes began to support the US-Iraqi troops in fighting al-Qaeda insurgents.
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