41 killed in air strikes and clashes in Iraq

A total of 41 people were killed and 48 others wounded on Tuesday in air strikes and clashes in Iraq's Salahudin province, a provincial security source said.
In one incident, up to 32 people were killed and 14 wounded after midnight when a helicopter gunship pounded the industry secondary school building housing three displaced families in the militant-seized town of Alam, some 10 km northeast of the provincial capital city of Tikrit, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The three families are relatives to the former ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussien, the source said. Earlier, the families fled their homes in the village of Uoja, some 12 km south of Tikrit, after their place turned to be a battlefield between the security forces and the Sunni militant groups.
Many of the killed and wounded were children, women and old men, the source said.
Meanwhile, two clashes erupted between security forces, backed by Shiite militiamen, with Sunni militant groups in south of the city of Samarra, some 120 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, and near the village of Uoja, just south of Tikrit, about 50 km north of Samarra, the source added.
A total of nine Shiite militiamen were killed and some 34 others wounded by the two battles, he said.
Salahudin province is a predominantly Sunni province and its capital Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, is the hometown of former President Saddam Hussein.
The security situation began to drastically deteriorate in Iraq since June 10 when bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and hundreds of Sunni militants.